I can't quite give out a price yet, as we're still working on some options/details/design but I will as soon as possible.

There will be a video, and perhaps more pictures fairly soon.

As far as some of the suggestions so far go: I will be looking into the cosmetic carbon fiber tube covers as a possible option. Stainless steel strut bodies could also an option, but would raise the cost quite a bit (you would really have to want that shine).

I love reading how many people are already interested, especially those willing to dump the junk they already bought. I will keep this thread updated, and keep the suggestions coming!

Chase

Now to answer a few questions:

Good question, it is not lower at all. In fact, it is a full 5 inches higher from the lower prop mount (6 full inches higher than the higher prop mount). If you wanna try at home, bring a ruler outside, hold your hood up, hold your prop rod up, and then lift the hood until the distance between the two correlate to the previous values. Pretty good lift isn't it!

We've thrown around ideas to make it custom, and are leaning more towards making it clean and OEM appearing, similar to our MCB. We are open to suggestions though!

I understand exactly what you mean. The brackets on the underside of the hood are held with two bolts. Its not going anywhere. The inner fender bracket is currently only held with one bolt. However, in the few weeks that I have been testing the brackets have not moved at all. I even made a special point to try and move them by hand. It took ALL of my body weight (former linebacker here) but I was able to get the bracket to loosen up. In real life this would never happen. However, just for piece of mind I re-designed the bracket with a tab that would prevent rotation in the event that loosening occurred. This feature will most likely make it to the final product. Again, it is not necessary, but it is a good idea.

We're based in Minnesota, so rust is completely unacceptable. Thank you very much, and we appreciate it!

I like the idea, and we have been throwing something like that around, especially for the gas spring itself as opposed to the bracket. Candy painted polished stainless steel bodies? Now you're talkin!

Well, do yourself a favor and sell those before these ones come out!

I'll dyno your face Zach! Lol, thanks, and I entirely agree!

Great idea, I'm looking into it

Yes sir, we love Australia too!

I'd go for the shiny too.
I've been holding out for the NRG innovations product for far too long and those run 140+ if that gives you any indication.
Having seen your products and your dedication to quality etc I'm stoked to see this come to fruition.

I would love simple and black, maybe with a white GS logo embossed on it. Simple, quality and a competitive price is what you guys do best and that's what I'd really be looking for here.

Very interested.

Interested. Count me in for black. Would like to see color options for branding, as to match (closely) the color of our cars. I'd also be down for red branding to go along with the interior stitching.

Glad to see y'all are working on these. Love what you guys do.

Serious question. What makes your hood struts any better than the Gimmick Motorsports, Circuit Sports, or Greddy hood dampers that are already on the market? I see all of these people responding "would definitely buy" but if they were so serious, wouldn't they have already purchased one of the three that already exists?

Have you tried any of the above? Any recommendations? From a quick search it looks like Gimmick is about $110, Circuit is $81, and Greddy is $175. Almost double from bottom to top price. I want quality but I don't want to overspend.

Gimmicks rusted on me within 3 months in beautiful northern California weather on my STi. The cheap ones usually do. Greddy is too expensive for me to justify for a part that I see as a luxury, but I'm sure they are quality. That is the difference. Grimmspeed we know makes quality parts at very competitive prices, so if they could make a quality one around the $100 range it would be the best of both worlds. That is why I haven't jumped on those others, but am seriously interested in Grimmspeed's.

That's an excellent question. I will have a much more substantial answer for you when our product is finalized, but I'll touch on a few key points here quickly.

I have "brand x" here installed. Two of the companies that you listed sell the exact same products. The gas springs might be different (which I would hope explains the extreme difference in cost), but the design of the brackets are IDENTICAL. These pieces appear to be universal, and were not designed for this car, but rather were picked based on their extreme low cost (looks like stamped sheet metal).

First thing I asked myself when I saw the brackets: "Why are there so many extra slotted holes in this bracket, and what do they bolt to?" They don't bolt to anything because they are an off the shelf part you buy, and then try to adapt to your "design."

Another good question is: "Why is the upper bracket that bolts to the hood so much wider than the stock hood bracket, and with its additional width, why isn't it butted up to the stock bracket to prevent rotation?" Again, it is obvious that this part was NOT designed for this car, and rather is just something off the shelf that they have adapted. Also, these brackets are very thin, very flimsy, and look terrible in gloss black. There is nothing built into the design to prevent the brackets from rotating over time with use. The current solution are the star shaped washers that bite into your paint to attempt to resist motion.

Our brackets are designed specifically for this car, they will not fit anything else. The upper brackets were designed in with the aid of our FARO arm, and the result is a piece that perfectly contours the hood. This helps the design function perfectly, but also gives an OEM look that these other designs seriously lack. Both brackets also have two anchor points to prevent rotation. We have even considered how bulky the hood is, and have designed the upper bracket in such a way that guarantees you will not accidentally unbolt the hood and potentially damage your car. I've worked on LOTS of different cars, and removed lots of hoods, so I knew that manhandling a hood around while trying to line up holes and thread in fasteners would be completely unacceptable. Small features like this are the reason why you want to buy parts from GrimmSpeed. The people who are designing your parts LOVE cars and actually work on them all the time, so we design parts the way we wish others designed their parts.

Their gas springs are of substantially lower quality as well. The hardware on them is heavily painted (not plated), and requires hand greasing them yourself to prevent rust and seizing problems. The diameter of the gas spring is smaller as well, which is usually a good indicator that ours will exhibit a more desirable and a more flat spring characteristic. Also, per the design, our gas spring has a longer stroke. A longer stroke means a smaller required spring force to do the same job, and less reaction forces at the joints. This decreases fatigue, and increases reliability.

Clearly, we put a lot of time into design for our hood struts. I won't get into it in this particular post, but it was certainly not easy to achieve the goals we set out to as far as hood "handling" and opening distance goes. I was over joyed after installing "Brand X" and seeing the extreme difference between something that was slapped together to be sold, and something that was meticulously designed with absolute goals. Not only can you see the difference in quality, you also get to use and feel it.

We'll release a video soon of how "Brand X" handles, and how ours handles. Just as a preview though:

-"Brand X" does not open the hood any higher than the stock prop rod. Infact, in the temperature it is outside right now in Minnesota (19F), it opens to a height less than would be held by the stock prop rod by about an inch.
- After this point, you can force the hood to go higher. Pushing hard up continues the extension of the gas springs and also significantly flexes the bracket to a point that I am a little worried about bending something, or destroying the threads on the inner fender. After you've forced the hood as high as it will go the hood still does not go as high as our design allows (and achieves automatically on its own). At this point, when you push the hood down to close you hear an audible "woosh" from the gas springs that seems to indicate that they were never meant to go to this height. Some might say the temperature might be affecting these results, but our design does not have these problems, and still functions very well in these low temperatures.
- The neutral point in the middle is very stiff, it does not have the same "one-finger-lift" feel that ours does.
- There is no "drop to close," meaning from the mid point below the neutral point you can not simply drop the hood to shut it, you must push it down as the gas springs are still acting against you, even when they should not be.

So, there are many reasons why our design is better, and these are a few of the big ones. I'll update later when I have a bit more for you, but I think the video and pictures will speak a lot louder than even I can about the difference in design and quality.

Chase
Engineering

Well i was holding off for price, but that right there jus sold me on them regardless

so...who wants my gimmick hood struts :lol:

I'm in

so down

Definitely interested in some quality hood struts and the wife has been asking for a Christmas list...