today i had a motordyne 5/16" plenum spacer installed and i couldn't help but notice a crooked alignment on the driver's side of the hood (looks as if something is pushing the hood up, creating an abnormal gap between the edges of the body panels). Obviously the spacer pushes the upper plenum up but i thought there would still be a respectable amount of space between the hood and the plenum.

Immediately i thought the sway bar was the cause but feeling and pushing down the edges of the right side of the hood, the pressure seems to be coming from a point higher up (closer to the windshield).

i mean its not an enormous gap but its driving me crazy, i guess im being a little OCD about it . Anyone else have this problem or have an idea where this pressure point is coming from???

 

lol, it's your strut brace. You will need to adjust it.

 

Why did you not just install it yourself??

 

You need to tighten the strut bar. Look for those three screws on the passenger side. Loosen the outer ones first and turn the middle one to tighten. Leave about 1.5-2mm of space between your strut bar and your upper plenum. It's a DIY so don't pay for it.

 

You may have placed too many washers under the strut bar and now it's too high. You have to find a happy medium between the plenum and the bottom of the strut bar and the hood and the top of the strut bar. This is accomplished by the number of washers and the tension on the strut bar.

 

I hade the same problem 1 week ago when i installed my 5/16 spacer and you need to adjust the strut bar.

I adjusted mine but then something els was hitting it and for me it was the short ram intake filter. so just check as ur closing it its something hitting the hood.

did u use the 1x big washer only? and did u do 25ftp on the bolts?

 

ya i really should have. couldn't find a in/lb torque wrench anywhere. The people at advance auto parts probably had one but no one could speak english so they were a lot of help!


anyways thanks for all the help guys ima try tightening the strut first and if that doesnt work ill try taking away a few washers from the brace.

 

well i htink i know what it is

makes sence now that you didnt install it and some none english speaking ppl did

here is what mostlikely happened

the kit comes with 8 big spacers and 4 small spacers for your strut bar.

in hte directions to install it says the 4 small spacers are optional ( and they are for the 5/8" plenum spacer witch requires the hood to be raised.

now if they installed those 4 small spacers with the kit there is your problem!

so check to see if they put the 4 small spacers in there. there should be only 1 big spacer under each bolt/stud

 

no no no maybe i worded that wrong but i would never give my car to people like that. i was looking everywhere for a torque wrench to install the spacer myself and after entering advanced auto parts and discovering that no one could speak english i gave up and decided to have the spacer installed by mechanics at a 350z/g35 tuning shop.

 

Try Sears. That's where I got mine.

 

I installed my 5/16 spacer an MREV 2. No issues. I just used the 4, 5/16 spacers under the strut bar. You can not even tell anything has been done. No Hood issues at all.

Chad

 

+1 to all the above.

You can adjust the strut bar up or down.
If its pushing up the hood, its set too high. You can easily fix this yourself by adjusting the strut bar tension or by removing the 4 (small) spacers on the driver side.

 

you never mentioned how you liked the spacer

 

12 in*lb = 1 ft*lb

 

havent drivin it much but honestly, driving 25 miles back from the tuning shop, i felt more of a gain from installing the popcharger than i did with the spacer. infact the car doesnt seem to be as loud through 5-6k rpm as it used to. I dunno maybe its just me but only a dyno will tell for sure. I was thinking there might be a leak or something so i may disassemble and reassemble the plenum myself.

One thing i did notice when watching the mechanic was that he did not use thread putty on the CCV. is the thread putty nessessary?

 

wow theres about half an inch of space between the strut bar and the plenum and the guys used the big washers only.

i tried tightening the strut bar but the hood didnt realign at all so i guess ima take the entire strut off to see if the hood goes down. this way if the hood does realign then i know the strut is causing it to do so if not then i know its something else.

 

zosomoso,

Good luck with all that.

All I did was removed the Strut Bar, and install everything. Now when I put the strut bar back in with the large washers I have to adjust the strut bar in on the Left hand side about 3 or so turns in. What I turned was the Mounting section of the strut bar.
Then Toured down and Re-tension the strut bar. It took me about 1.3 hours to do all.

Chad

 

That's way too much space. You probably need to get it down around 1/4" so that will give you more clearance between the strut bar and the hood.

Note that when you "tighten" the strut bar adjustment, you're actually pushing it higher. You need to loosen it, take it off, take some washers out then re-install it. Tighten the adjustment on the strut bar about 1 1/2 turns.

 

well i loosened it and the hood finally went down!

and i would put the smaller washers on but i forgot to ask for them back.

one thing i dont understand though from what point do you rotate the adjustment bolt 1.5 turns? is there point in which it stops rotating or something?

 

You can probably get some thinner (smaller?) washers at any hardware store and they would work.

You're actually supposed to loosen the center bolt 1.7 times, but it's a lot easier to just say 1.5 times,

The proper procedure to remove the strut bar is

1) loosen the locking nuts on the strut bar.
2) loosen the center bolt 1½ turns. This takes the compression load off of the strut bar.
3) loosen and remove the bolts/nuts that hold the strut bar mount to the body.

Reverse the procedure to re-install the strut bar.

Where a lot of people get in trouble is that they loosen the nuts/bolts first and the tension on the bar causes the mounts to slide. Then when they go to put it back on, it has no tension. A lot of times, they have problems getting the bolts back in properly and wind up starting them crooked and they strip the threads. Loosening the center bolt 1½ turns will cause the mounts to come a little closer together making it easier to get the bolts lined up into the holes.