When you receive this product, it will arrive disassembled. As you can see, this product comes with two side struts and those are connected by a center brace. Along with these three bars, we get all the necessary hardware, a sticker, and instructions that are Japanese only.
When it comes to actually installing the strut tower bar, you can either preassemble and place the entire structure in the engine bay at once or you can install it piece by piece. I will be doing the latter because I personally think that this is the easier approach.
I’m going to start on the passenger side. First, grab the appropriate strut and align it with the two pre-drilled holes. Now, we can take the provided M10x25 bolt, split washer, and flat washer, and hand tighten them to the bottom pre-tapped hole. You don’t want to fully tighten anything yet as you may need to make adjustments later on. Next, grab the M8x50 bolt with a flat washer and just slip it into the top hole. This is just an empty cavity and is not pre-tapped so the bolt will fall through to its head. Me personally, I went and picked up some rubber washers to put under these two connecting points because it is metal on metal contact. Over time, the paint and powder coat could potentially wear out, leaving these spots unprotected and prone to rusting. This step is strictly optional.
After both side struts are in place, we can take the center brace and connect it to the two sides. My center brace came with the hardware preinstalled and shows how the various washers are to be placed. So, just remove the hardware and transfer them to the side struts. This is actually where I ran into my only problem with this install. My driver's side strut was not spaced correctly where it meets the center brace. It was about a 1/8” too narrow. Because I was in a rush and couldn’t think of another solution, I just took a rubber mallet to the welded on plate. If you run into this problem and are going to do the same thing, hit the longer plate because it sticks out more and is more pliable. Also, don’t go too crazy. It only takes a few soft hits. You don’t want to accident damage the powder coating. After doing this, I was able to get the various pieces to align properly. Again, insert the hardware and just hand tighten.
Now, we move on to the fun part of the install. What we have to do is take the serrated nut and screw it into the M8x50 bolt that sits in the empty hole. I wish I could show you what this looks like but I went at it blind. I just stuck my arm in the wheel well, felt around for the bolt, and got it done. Doing it this way is possible if you’re on stock suspension height. I think it’d be a lot harder if not impossible if your Supra is lowered because there just isn’t enough clearance room to get an arm in there. If you want to make this step easier, you can either remove the top plastic fender arch, you can jack up the front and let the wheels droop to gain more clearance room, or you can just take the entire wheel off. I knew that I didn’t have to do any of this so I just gave the Supra the old reach around.
Now, once you get the nut hand tightened on the bolt, you have to go back and get a wrench in there and hold the nut down as you tighten things from up top or vice versa. For this, I used a 3/8” wrench with a deep 12mm socket for the nut and a 6mm hex key for the bolt. Once you get the tools in place, I would suggest to just tight this bolt down now so you don’t have to keep dealing with this step. If you have long skinny arms, this process is going to be fairly easy.
Now it’s just a matter of getting all the other bolts tightened down. The M10x25 takes an 8mm hex key. The M10x75 takes an 8mm hex key and 14mm wrench.
And there you have it. The Blitz Front Strut Tower Bar installed in the A90 Supra. This is a pretty easy install and if your bars are properly welded from the factory, things should get along fairly straightforward. All there’s really to do now is for me to clean the engine bay and make everything look more presentable.
Now, before I end the video I want to talk about a few things. First and foremost, if you’ve been searching the market for front struts for the A90 Supra, you’ve no doubt seen the Cusco Front Power Brace. And with that, there’s no doubt some very obvious similarities between that and the Blitz shown here. From pictures, the design seems identical. I personally went with the Blitz purely because of the color. I just cannot stand the Cusco blue and silver. I was actually going to buy it and have it re-powder coated until I discovered the Blitz which was about the same price but in the exact color figuration that I wanted. Going with the Blitz just saved a lot of time and money.
Speaking of color, when I was researching the Blitz, a lot of images that I saw depicted the tower bar with what looked like an anthracite or dark grayish center brace. If you’re wondering about this too, I can confirm that the center brace is black. Although it’s matte, it just reflects light in a way that always makes it look lighter than it really is. But no doubt, it is black not a shade of grey.
Lastly, you probably noticed that I have an aftermarket intake on my Supra. This is the Injen Evolution 2300 and it fits with no problems. There’s actually a lot of space between it and the tower bar. I can’t speak for any other aftermarket intakes but it seems like the Blitz Front Strut Tower Bar will fit with the stock intake and Injen Evolution 2300 intake perfectly fine.
If you're considering buying any of the products mentioned, please support my work by using the links below.
All the Auto Detailing Equipment I Use: https://www.amazon.com/ideas/amzn1.account.AF43XRPGVOUH2E5CJXQY4FIOGVAQ/3AI3XVAQEMORX?type=explore&ref=idea_cp_vl_ov_d
Want to support my work?
Consider visiting the shop and buying "Absolutely Nothing" https://www.HaiHoangTran.com/shop/absolutely-nothing
or
Become a Patron!
https://www.patreon.com/HaiHoangTran
or
PayPal
https://www.PayPal.me/HaiHoangTran
or
Just shop on Amazon via this link!
https://amzn.to/2FgsDnG