Hood Strut System for Tacomas with Obstacles?

We know that many of you guys have under-the-hood add-ons that make hood strut installation difficult - on-board air compressors, power trays, and a variety of cold air intakes.

While some are easier to accommodate than others, there's still a set of obstacles that are really difficult to work around. Sooooo...

We've been experimenting with single hood strut systems - basically a single strut, sized to do the work of traditional two strut systems. You put the strut on the side of the truck that does not have the obstacles, and you're done! So if you have extensive electrical components on the driver side, you install the strut on the passenger side; if you have the Injen CAI on the passenger side, you put the strut on the driver side. Of course if you have lots of obstacles on both sides, this won't solve your issue.

The prototype system works quite well - it lifts just like a two strut system, and feels completely normal during closing, provided you push down on the hood on the side where the strut is.

How many of you have been holding off on struts due to existing obstacles, and would be interested in having this system, should we go ahead and turn it into production?

 

Me! Genius thinking and appreciate you guys thinking outside the box as I’ve wanted to do struts for years now.

 

me

 

I just put your struts on my Taco yesterday and after I put the driver side on, I closed the hood to make sure it cleared my wiring (it did). The single strut I put on actually held the hood up just fine by itself and actually lifted the hood fairly easily.

I did put the passenger side on as well and the hood basically opens itself once I un-latch it.

 

Putting one larger strut will work fine. Lincoln does this on a lot of their midsized SUVs

 

Sweet dude! Good job! Only thing I'd be worried about is the rivets for mounting.

 

Thanks for the feedback folks!

@SpyGoat , you are right, a single strut in the current kit is adequate to hold up the hood, but I size the struts to have extra lifting and holding power, so that even after a few years it holds the hood in place even on an incline, in cold weather, and during a wind gust.

@Skydvrr good point about the rivets, the ones we supply will still have about 4X the capacity of what is needed to keep them safely secured.