Installation Time
(approx) 30 Minutes
Difficulty Level:
Simple installation for anyone.
Installation Guides
- Customer Submitted:
- How to install a Black Strut Tower Brace on your 2005-2012 Mustang
FREE 1 to 3-Day Delivery on Orders $119+ Details
$191.99
FREE Shipping Market Price $218.99 You Save 12% ($27.00) Up to 10% off for Military & First Responders! See DetailsSaved - View your saved items
We're sorry. We couldn't save this product at this time.
or use
Hey guys, Adam here with americanmuscle.com. Today we're taking a quick look at and installing the Ford Performance Strut Tower Brace in black available for the '05 to '14 at GT Mustang. Now, if you're the owner of that S197, whether it's the early 5.0s or the later year 5.0s, you might be looking to add a little bit of something under the hood, not only to give some style to your underhood dress up, but also to give some functionality to your suspension. This is a very, very easy way to stiffen up your suspension, reduce suspension flex and improve your handling.Now, I know some of you guys at home might be wondering how a strut tower brace under your hood can actually help your handling. Now the way it works, is pretty simply connecting both top strut towers, you are tensing up that front end suspension making everything a little tighter, reducing some of that chassis flex, so going around tight corners will be a little bit easier and a little sportier. Now this particular one is finished in a gloss black. It's got a platinum or a brushed aluminum finish up top with the Ford logo and the Ford Racing script embedded in the materials. It's a pretty cool look under the hood. It's paintable and it comes in at an affordable price.Now, if you're looking to pick this one up for your own '05 to '14 GT, you can do so for just about 175 bucks, which I think is a very worthwhile price for guys looking to build a show car. Now, if you're popping the hood at a lot of show events, you might be looking for a strut tower brace that looks good under the hood and can add some customization to your setup. Now it is worth noting here, this does not fit V6 Mustangs, there's a specific one for the V6 owners out there. It also doesn't fit the Cobra Jet manifolds, Boss 302 manifolds or the Shelby GT 500. Also if you have a route style supercharger, this particular one does not have enough clearance to fit them. So keep that in mind moving forward.Now as far as that install's concerned, I'm gonna show you guys that in just a second. One out of three wrenches on our difficulty meter, start to finish, 5 to 10 minutes at the most, it is extremely simple. Tack on another five minutes if you have to uninstall our strut tower brace you might already own. We do not have one on our 2011 GT, so it's gonna make our life just a little bit easier. All you need is a ratchet and a 13-millimeter socket. So let me show you how it's done. Tools needed for this install are a ratchet and a 13-millimeter socket. All right to kick off our install, the first thing I wanna point out is that there really isn't anything to uninstall. If you have currently a strut tower brace on your Mustang, obviously you wanna take that off before swapping over to the Ford Performance one that we have here. We do not have one under the hood. So the first thing we're gonna do here is pop the hood, remove the strut tower bolts on each side. There's two that we're gonna remove on each strut tower with our 13-millimeter socket. So let's get to it. We're starting over here on our passenger side. These are the four struck tower bolts. What we're gonna do, is remove these two nuts on the inside of the engine bay. Those two on each side will get removed, we're gonna set our strut tower brace on top of these studs and then cap them off with the factory nuts. All right, repeat the same process for the other side.Now we can grab our strut tower brace and set it into place. All right, so you see it's got the pre-cut holes on each side, those are gonna go right over top of the studs on each side. It sits into place pretty nicely. You wanna make sure your positive terminal of the battery cover is out of the way, got that covering the battery there. Now all we have to do is put those factory nuts back into place over the studs and we'll be good to go. Now it's worth noting here that if you have a supercharged GT with the route style blower here sitting on top of the manifold area, this is not gonna fit. There are a couple different ways that this is not fit, one of them is with a route style supercharger, the other one is with a Boss 302 intake manifold, Cobra Jet manifold, things like that. They are a little higher then the factory manifold will not fit with the strut tower brace, so that's good to note here. We've got a factory GT so factory manifold on here from Ford, that way this is gonna be a perfect fitment. All right so we've got the factory nuts going over the studs here, tighten down by hand on each side. And then we'll come back and tighten them down. This one being Grabber Blue and at the actual strut tower brace from Ford Racing is a gloss black. So it does contrast the firewall and like everything we've got going on the engine bay, but it blends in pretty nicely with the engine itself. So if you're looking to blend in but also contrast your factory color, this is a really good choice. But I do wanna point out, you can get it paint matched to your factory car color. So if we decided to get this strut tower brace painted to Grabber Blue, we really blend in with the strut tower covers here which is a really nice touch in my opinion and adds a splash of color to your engine bay. So for guys out there attending a lot of car shows, getting this painted can really do a number of customization. But right out of the box here, the gloss black does, in my opinion, look pretty good, it's stealthy finish and the platinum or otherwise chrome or brushed aluminum finish on the plate in the middle does also look pretty good contrasting the black. So there's a lot of ways you can do this to customize it to your own car. I like the gloss black but you can also get it paint matched to your factory color. That's gonna wrap up my review and install of the Ford Performance Strut Tower Brace in black, fitting all '05 to '14 GT Mustangs. Now if you're the owner of that S19750, you might be looking to get some underhood dress up, something that looks really cool on top of your engine bay while also reducing suspension flex, tightening up that front end chassis and improving your suspension and handling. If that's what you're looking for, this is an extremely easy and affordable mod for your Mustang and you can get one right here at americanmuscle.com.
Subscribe to our YouTube Channel
Features, Description, Reviews, Q&A, Specs & Installation
Brand | Ford Performance |
Suspension Brace Type | Shock Tower |
Technical Note. The Ford Racing Strut Tower Brace does not fit V6, Supercharged GT's, Shelby GT500 or BOSS Mustangs. Not compatible with BOSS 302 Intake Manifold or the Ford Racing High Performance Intake Manifold.
Fitment:
Ford Performance M-20201-S197
CA Residents: WARNING: Cancer and Reproductive Harm - www.P65Warnings.ca.gov
Installation Info
Installation Time
(approx) 30 Minutes
Difficulty Level:
Simple installation for anyone.
Installation Guides
What's in the Box
Tech Guides:
10 More Questions
Does not fit V6, Supercharged GT's, Shelby GT500 or BOSS Mustangs. Not compatible with BOSS 302 Intake Manifold or the Ford Racing High Performance Intake Manifold.