Hood Dampers on my FD
 

Just installed the NRG hood dampers I ordered from Banzai and wanted to share with the group that they are EXCELLENT. No more annoying hood prop that didn't fit with my ginormous ASP SMIC. The dampers are super easy to install and damn do they work smooth!! One of the better purchases you can make for relatively cheap ($125).

Happy Thursday,

Jonesy

Pics please

Sí, fotos sería una buena idea...

^ por favor ;)

I like mine too.

http://www.newcelica.org/photopost/d...31af45c7_b.jpg

So, when closing the hood, you have to push it close with your palm?

Or does the drop method work with these somehow?

EDIT: very clean FD man!

Thanks! Drop method works perfectly, just like in my much newer Lexus, but I have no idea how either works exactly, lol.

Can you get a close up pic of the bracket installed on the hood?

are these for OEM hoods only? would they work aftermarket hoods?

NRG offers dampers in full and low pressure depending on whether the vehicle is equipped with a heavy factory hood or an aftermarket lightweight FRP/CF hood.

Hood Dampers (93+ RX-7)

Looks good, too bad it is going to be almost a month for them to have them again...

I have these on my S2000. Definitely worth the money and I'll be doing the same on an RX7...once I can find one.

I haven't looked at the RX7 specific NRG dampers, but for the S2000, they offer full pressure for OEM hoods and half pressure for aftermarket hoods.

The stock hood dampers are currently on backorder from NRG (3-4 weeks), good thing they are not a critical item for driving the car, worth the wait though

I have a tein set on my car.
They work really well too. Nice quality.

http://www.avb-sports.be/slir/w500-h...6/tein-HD3.jpg

Could try them if you don't want to wait.

They have the regular chrome available though which is what I just installed. Real easy and real sturdy as well.

Kindof makes it a pain in the butt to service the back half of the engine bay, eh?

It's not any worse than working around the rod.
I used to be concerned about the hood getting warped by the rod as many times as I've left the hood open for extended periods of time. I like the lift assist shocks better because of even weight distribution near the hinges.

It does only take like 3 seconds to pull the clip and move the rod if needed...

Just an FYI, I had a set of these and spoke to NRG about it for more than a year. Supposedly the newer runs fixed a defect. I was supposed to get a newer run bracket but the ones I got instead were the same ones I returned (which also may mean that I had the newer brackets all along).

I purchased these
https://www.rx7club.com/3rd-generati...er-ki-1051140/

This is how the brackets I received should have been installed (under, sandwich between hood).
https://i.imgur.com/3PxKA1c.jpg

This will cause the hood to lift a bit due to the extra thickness of the bracket.

The people with the defective designed brackets that have them installed "over" usually end up having the brackets eventually rotate because nothing besides torquing the bracket tight keeps it in place in the proper orientation for any period of time. I've actually seen a few pics of these brackets on FDs that are rotated over a bit due to this.

Those are backwards. Mine went opposite of that although I did try to install that way and had the bumping problem. Turns out they went on the opposites side and backwards. So you basically just undo the top nut and put the bracket and tighten bolt back.

^ + 1.

Haven't had mine installed all that long but no issues using stainless acorn nuts with lock washers. IIRC the directions weren't all that great, but I purposely didn't install the NGR bracket UNDER the hood hinge so it wouldn't mess with hood fitment. The milled out part of the NRG bracket fit perfectly over the hinges and can't rotate.
All in all it's like when I moved to a Nardi wheel, something I wished I'd done along time ago.

Maybe you have a newer bracket? When installed opposite and backwards, the tab that attaches to the damper scratches the hood when tightened and oriented correctly. I actually have a pic of this somewhere as well. This was the original orientation I tried. I even spoke to the guy at nrg that designed these. The brackets I personally received were bad. It would be pretty crazy if I was shipped 2 sets of bad brackets but it's not out of the realm of possibility.

If you ever get the chance, can you take a pic? You're telling me if you loosen everything a tad, the bracket won't rotate at all? That portion with the ball joint won't hit the hood at all either?

This is how mine are attached, kind of hard to get the pictures with it so bright today. The backside is the indent portion that sits on the hinge so it doesn't move. This is where I got mine.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/271266340365?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

Thanks for the pic.

Yea, oriented like yours, the piece where the ball joint meets the bracket would be going into the hood. Your bracket looks a tad rotated but that ball joint piece seems to be welded differently than on the brackets I received. I think they sent me 2 sets of defective brackets. WOW

^I can take a picture if you want, but mine are installed just like Houston's except (like I already mentioned), I'm using a lock washer. They were also labeled like his too. The brackets are necessarily canted just a bit due to the milled out portion fitting around the hood hinge. But it's symmetrical from right to left and really doesn't look out of place when both are installed.

Yea sure why not. Wouldn't hurt to take a pic if you have the time. If there was a new run, I'm pretty curious as to what they look like now.

^ Sorry it took so long, but here ya go...
BTW, you can't read it in the picture, but that little white sticker has a "L" on it for LEFT.

Attachment 614597

Thanks for the pic. Yea my brackets would not be able to fit that way for sure. The ball joint weld is definitely different. I'll most likely go with someone else for my replica car unless I get a free set from nrg.

Right side bracket

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx7...14ae31bd0b.jpg

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx7...ed1f593c80.jpg

This is what happened to me. This is with the hinge on the hood. Am I missing something?

Notice on my first pic, the the bracket is in the same orientation as your second picture. The second pic shows the bracket tilted because that was the only way that the bracket could be tightened without the welded ball joint piece hitting the hood. My bracket would also over rotate more than that as well.

Yea mine didn't go exactly straight looking, but it was still held by the hinge indent.

i have the soki ones on ebay that are like 60 bucks. they work great too

The hinge go between the hood and the bracket, that should level it out.

Check out my first pic. You can see that the bracket is over not between, look at the back of the hinge, you can see that the hinge is bolted down in the back. The reason why you think it will level out is because that will give more space between the ball joint weld and the hood but it STILL hits the hood and had to be rotated to not do so. You can even see a small nick on the hood where this happened. I've tried every way possible to install the bracket without undoing the hinge. It wasn't even my idea to sandwich the bracket, the seller told me that was the way to do it and at the time, it seemed more correct because at least nothing would dig into the hood without being rotated.

Hmm yea I see it now, not sure how much room you have but maybe add a washer?

Had a similar issue, but with the Soki Tech dampers. It came with the locking washer and the stock nuts couldn't catch the hood bolts that well cause the bracket was too thick, ended up skipping the washer and using a different nut to make everything fit and sit flush =/

How does something like that pass QA?

Yea. That was actually my plan but I thought that maybe I had a defective set so I decided to contact nrg and that's how all of this started for me. I forget the guy I spoke to at nrg about it, great fella and he really did his best to get me sorted. I'd consider buying other nrg products just because of the customer support but the struts have left a bad taste in my mouth.

Yeah, looks like they somehow gave you a bracket that's not for the FD.

I'm sure they're for the FD. The indentation is "correct". I think the first one I got was an old run with the ball joint welded a bit to high and the second set (which was a set that was lying and was lucky to get because they thought they sold out) they replaced it with was just an old set again.

Anyway, I guess I can't do anything about it at this point. I'd rather just buy another kit if I'm going to put it on my nice FD.

Ali to Goodfellas. He may have some very nice hood dampers someone made for him that he isn't using.

I have a FRP hood i see it says they have Low pressure ones but has anyone tried these before i go to the buy, i had stock OEM ones and they were awesome i would like them again

Looks like you just need to file a small amount of material off the welded base. I would say make it a 45 angle and then it will bolt on straight and not hit your hood.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx7...90a62c6c9a.jpg

I agree with you but the bracket still rotated more than I thought should be possible. Either way, it's no longer in my hands.

The RE hood dampeners work great and don't rotate.

Yup, that's the one I'm using, 2 mounting points so the won't rotate.

I bought a kit like that and extended the bracket to hold it in place. Only on the right side. The left side always trys to tighten so it never has an issue