thespeedline.com genpu hood strut kit

Yep, definitely leave the prop installed in case of failure. The struts on my juan kit from speedline did actually die while I still had the car, but I replaced them with a really beefy pair from Amazon for like $20 and was good to go again. The simple bolt-in, no drill/rivet, brackets are really what I've liked about these kits.
 
Oh yeah. I think I went with a TrackMaster bolt in kit. It’s been awhile


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Installed these recently. Nice little kit and fitment was nice and easy. One thing that's a little sketchy is the fenders do flex when you open/close the hood. I'm a little concerned about that and thought about possibly reinforcing underneath a little bit to eliminate that. I'll post up here if I come up with a decent solution for that.

Also, I saw the thing about it taking a few seconds to actually open all the way with these struts and decided to let it open itself the first time after installing them. These might be a newer model of struts that come with the kit, but my goddamn hood flew back so hard that I was worried I was gonna break something. I have to slowly raise up my hood when I pop it now to keep it from entering orbit.
 
I have a relatively big update for this kit.

Basically the struts in this kit suck ass. Mine died after less than a month and I was looking at options for replacement. I was able to source a set of struts HERE

Unfortunately the ones I liked are showing as unavailable currently, but the important things to note with a replacement set of struts is the extended length, compressed length, ball joint size, and opening force. The ones I bought were universals that had:

Extended Length: ~13"
Compressed Length: ~8"
Ball Joint Size: 3/8"
Opening Force: 84lbs

Any universal set should work for you just fine as long as you take this into consideration.

One other thing I'll say is, if you're looking at a new set of hood struts for your genpu and are looking to get something cheaper than the Redline set, I'd just bite the bullet and buy those. I'm now in the hole as much as a Redline set would've cost and it took a month to get these from Thailand or wherever it came from.
 
I don't know....I could buy two or three pairs of replacement struts and still be in for less money than a Redline kit. The set I got from eBay arrived in only a few days, and when I bought replacement struts for my juan off Amazon they were Prime shipped. You can't beat the convenience and ease of install of these, IMO.
 
SharksInSpace said:
I don't know....I could buy two or three pairs of replacement struts and still be in for less money than a Redline kit. The set I got from eBay arrived in only a few days, and when I bought replacement struts for my juan off Amazon they were Prime shipped. You can't beat the convenience and ease of install of these, IMO.
Click to expand...

Redline kit is like $80 and the total for the original set and replacement struts is $80 as well plus a month of shipping time. I'm not sure about the random eBay seller you bought from, but the normal source is not a couple days. The replacement struts were no problem since I also got them with Prime.
 
There were a number of different sellers offering them for less money and faster shipping than Speedline. Although the juan kit I bought directly from Speedline definitely did not take a month to arrive, either...more like 10 days iirc. ¯\_(?)_/¯
 
I might just be unlucky with the shipping stuff. I get that install is easier with this kit, but one thing I think the Redline kit has on this is the positioning of the brackets that the struts attach to. The whole fender flexes when I open and close my hood with this set, and while I'm not having any problems with this now, I still don't love that it moves around like that. The Redline kit installs further back where there's actually something supporting underneath, so I think that would be a bit more solid. Drilling holes and riveting is not fun, but I guess you have to pick your poison.

Either way, I'm happy to have hood struts again. Hopefully these ones last.
 
I have had my juan hood struts 2 years now and it held the hood up an entire year while the motor was out. I am guessing the quality is just hit or miss. I am very happy with mine so far.
 
Bump. Genpu kit from eBay still going strong. No sign of the struts weakening or wearing out. If they do, I'll just get a cheap replacement set from Amazon like I did with my juan kit.
 
I don't think there's any difference between submodels, just generation. The kit I bought was not Speed specific.
 
Yeah, I see what you mean, basically have to pick one that matches the shock length to what we need. It seems that this being a heavy hood and an awkward angle, we need each shock to do at least 80lb of force, curious if others have come to that conclusion as well.

I see that redline's kit is now mounted differently, not to the hood brackets bu t to the middle of the hood somewhere and sort of to the back end of the fender. seems like maybe that's for better leverage? when I made my own back in 2013, I used something similar to the original kit and made beefy brackets that used two bolts on the front of the fender so it wouldn't flex. cost me all of $30 with struts so I may do that again, instead of spending $90.
https://www.streetunit.com/Redline_Tuning_Hood_QuickLift_Mazdaspeed_3_p/21-26008.htm

Yes, I know it's an SU link but it's the only one with installed pics. All others like Edge just show 3 variations of the redline kit and don't really say what the differences are, though some may have SS hardware, per the SU site.
 

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Cool. I have to go back and see what I used, this is the best pic I have of my old setup:
 

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