California Pony Cars has been around for a while and had always been known for high quality and great fitting parts. We were fortunate enough to get our hands on a set of their new 2005-12 Mustang California Pony Cars NXT Hood Strut Kits for our Kona Blue 2011 Mustang GT Race Car.

At first look, you can see that this Mustang hood strut kit is high quality and uses strong material for a great looking and great functioning part. The best part about the California Pony Cars hood strut kit is that there is no drilling required for the installation like in many of the other name brand kits. This kit uses all factory hood mounting points and hardware for a quick and seamless installation on your 2005-2012 Mustang.

First off, your will need to locate the windshield washer hose and the clips that attach it to the hood. These are located on the passenger side of the Mustang. You will need to remove both of these clips. Simply pop the clip open, remove the hose and pull the clip out of the hood.

Next up, locate the rear 10MM fender bolt. Remove the bolt and install the lower hood strut bracket with the factory bolt. These lower brackets are marked on the back with a D or P for driver's or passenger's side of the engine bay. 

Once you have installed the lower brackets, you will need to grab a friend for help. In my case, our new salesman Jay, helped support the hood when removing the (2) 10MM hinge bolts. Be careful in removing the bolts as the hood will shift slightly if not properly supported by your helper. After removing the bolts place the upper hood strut bracket on over the hinge and reinstall the factory bolts. When you are tightening the bolts, make sure your Mustang hood is correctly aligned as close to the factory paint lines as possible. This will help prevent future adjustments. 

Now that you have both brackets in place on each side of your Mustang, you will need to have someone lift up on the front of the hood. Once the hood is opened far enough you simply attach the hood struts to the studs on each side by pressing them on. Make sure the windshield washer hose is on the outside of the hood strut to prevent any binding or pinching.

Now if your Mustang is equipped with a factory Interior Sound Tube(IST), you will need to relocate the junctions located on the driver's side inner fender. All you need to do is unbolt the one(1) 10MM bolt from the fender and lower the junction to under the fender lip and reinstall the bolt. When moving the IST junction you will notice that the top of the junction does not meet flush with the fender lip, all you need is a razor blade and a little time to trim it up. In our case we just removed the sound tube all together since our 2011 Mustang RTR Racecar is just a little too loud to need any more interior sound! 

If you choose to remove your sound tube make sure to plug off the firewall hole and also cap the tube extension on your Mustang air intake. Some kits such as our JLT Cold Air Kits come with a cap just for this reason.

After relocating or removing your interior sound tube, you can remove your factory prop rod. This is held on with one(1) 10MM bolt and one small tab on the bracket. Unbolt, lift up and you're done!

Now it is time to lower the hood to ensure that your hood is still properly aligned. Slowly begin to lower you hood making sure nothing is left under the hood and the hood-to-fender gaps are the same on each side of the Mustang. Luckily for us, we needed no adjustments at all, and the hood lowered into perfect position right off the bat!

After your hood is aligned and closely properly, you are all finished with your new California Pony Cars Hood Strut Kit installation. Not only will these hood struts clean up the underside of your Mustang engine bay, there is no more dodging the prop rod when working under the hood and also a little more head room to easily access all areas of your Mustang's engine. As you can see the hood opens quite a bit farther than before compared to the prop rod height.

Here is a side shot to show that there was no bulging of the hood where the brackets are mounted on the underside.

This California Pony Cars Mustang hood strut installation takes about 30 minutes from start to finish and only requires one(1) 10MM socket and a ratchet. Quick and simple, for a very noticeable difference under your Mustang's hood.