Video Review & Installation

Hey, guys. Adam here with americanmuscle.com. Today, we're taking a closer look at and installing the SR Performance front strut, available for the '94 to '04 Mustang. You should be checking this out for your New Edge Mustang if you're in need of a front strut replacement. This guy is going to be for the budget-friendly New Edge owners looking to get their ride quality back at the front end for an affordable cost. The SR Performance here is going to be an upgrade over the factory strut. It's a non-adjustable preset dampening, so you can't go in and adjust that quality there, but it is going to come in at right around the $70 mark, which is, again, great for the guys not looking to spend a whole lot of money on some adjustable options, or coil-overs, or anything like that.This is a perfect fit for stock springs or for lowering springs. So, no matter which way you go with your suspension build, this guy is going to work. The SR Performance option here does have a larger diameter piston over the factory front strut, which means it's going to have a better compression and rebound rate, making it a good upgrade. Now, it has a twin-tube gas pressurized design, which is an industry standard, especially when it comes to those factory options, so you're not losing any quality there. It's going to be right up to par.This guy, again, comes in right around 70 bucks, which makes it a very affordable option. They are sold individually, so you'll be right in around $140 for the pair at the front end. It's finished in a nice black powder coating there, which really doesn't have much of an effect, but it adds some corrosion and rust resistant to the strut there.Now, like I said, this is an ideal replacement as well. So, if your front strut is going bad, there are a few key signs you want to look out for. Now, if you have excessive nose dive upon braking, if your strut has any leaks, or if you feel like you have a rough ride quality, especially over rocks and bumps, that's probably a sign that your front strut is going bad, if it hasn't done so already. Now, if you are replacing one side, it is always a good idea to replace the other, because if one's going bad, you're probably going to see the other one go bad some time soon as well. So, like I said, 70 bucks for one, or 140 for both.Now, the install, I'm going to give one out of three wrenches on our difficulty meter. It is an extremely simple install that has about three bolts holding this guy on. I'm going to show you every step of the process. What do you say we get started?Tools used in this install include an impact gun, also an air tool, not necessarily required, but definitely makes things easier, a 21-millimeter deep socket, and a 15/16 deep socket, along with a hammer.First up here, we got our wheel out of the way on our driver side. Now, we have our ABS lines that are attached into this bracket that go down to the bolts holding the factory strut to the spindle. We're going to pull those clips out. There's one at the bottom, and then this guy right at the top, which we're just going to guide out. That way, we can alleviate any stress instead of pulling down on that ABS line. Now what we're going to do is grab a 15/16 socket to remove the nut holding on this bracket.All right. So, this bracket here that was holding on our ABS line is attached to the nut, the top nut. There is a 15/16 there, so I'm just going to use my impact gun to get that guy off. All right, nice and simple. I'm going to set that aside. From there, I can grab that bracket and set it aside as well.All right, so now you can see, underneath that bracket, there's two more bolts, same thing, 15/16. So, I got my socket here. I'm going to get those off. Now, we just have to get those bolts off. So, I'm holding a hammer. I'm going to tap these guys back out.All right, so at this point, I got a pole jack under our spindle here. Now, I'm basically just jacking this up slightly to relieve the pressure on the bolt to allow me to just slide it right out, just like that. The top guy is a little bit tighter, so I'm going to use a Phillips head screwdriver and a hammer to just tap it out. If you try relieving some of that pressure and that doesn't work, this may.All right, so now we're under the hood. We have one top nut above our strut hat here that needs to be removed. Once you loosen this guy up, the strut's going to want to fall through, so it's a good idea to have your hand on it in the wheel well. I'm using a 21-millimeter socket. I'm going to get this guy off. Now that we have this guy out, we can set it aside.All right, so we have our factory strut next to our SR Performance upgraded front strut here, and visually, guys, there's not a whole lot different to look at aside from the SR Performance logo. Now, what you see here is a crusty old front strut that has our dust boot on it. It's got the bushing underneath of it there, and it's got a metal sleeve at the top. We are going to have to transfer over a couple of those components to our new strut.So, the first thing you want to do is pick this guy up and pull off that metal sleeve, then your dust boot comes after that, and finally, this bushing here. Now, the bushing may need a little bit of help coming off. It might be a little stuck to it, in which case, WD-40 can come in handy as well. So, what we're going to do is pick up our new strut and take off the new nut off the top. So, we're not going to be reusing that factory nut there under the hood. Bushing's going to slide over first, and here you can see the larger diameter piston. Then, you're going to put your dust boot over top, and then finally, the metal sleeve. So, now that we transferred over those components, it's almost indistinguishable from the factory strut, aside from the fact that it looks a lot cleaner because it hasn't seen the suspension yet. So, what we're going to do is put this guy back underneath. First thing we're going to do is put that top nut on, tighten down the bottom bolts, put our bracket back on, and finish up the job.All right, now that we're ready to put this back in the car, what do you say we start from down here and start feeding it up into position? So, now we have that bushing still there, we're going to put that metal spacer as well, and finally, the new nut included in the kit.Now I'm going to grab my 15/16 socket. I'm using air tools for this, but an impact gun works just as well. And I'm going to tighten this down.All right, so now I've got my pole jack under the lower control arm, and I've got it jacked up enough to line up the spindle to the holes in our new front strut. Once you have those holes lined up, you want to grab the factory bolts and put them through. Perfect. So, now we want to take those factory nuts and thread those on by hand. Now we can grab our impact gun and tighten them down.All right, so now we're going to put that bracket back on that held our ABS line. The stud on the bottom helps align it. The stud on the top is going to get this nut. All right, so now we can tighten that guy down.All right, and now we can finish it off by reconnecting those clips. So, we have the bottom one here that goes into that hole.All right, the last step here is to grab that top portion of the rubber bushing on your ABS line and slide it back into the bracket. And from there, guys, you can repeat this on the other side if you're completing both front struts.So, if you're looking for a replacement strut for a blown-out or damaged front strut, the SR Performance is an extremely budget-friendly way to go, and it's an ideal upgrade. Now, if you want to pick this up, you can do so for your '94 to '04 Mustang right here at americanmuscle.com.