dicer

The particular one I tested is not OEM this one has a blue tag on it and a number 4572
made in USA. It starts moving at about 80 lbs, to hold it compressed is about 100 lbs.

Does anyone have an OEM that they could test? Just a small wood block on a bathroom scale is what I used.

These are the same ones I had installed on one of the 90's and its seems to do exactly what an OEM one would do. Hood is easy to close they don't seem to put more pressure than is necessary to open or close the hood. It would be nice if there were some available with springs instead of gas, they might last longer.

RA40

iTrader: (6)

Don't know the pressure ratings. This thread has part#'s and they should be able to cross reference them for length, etc.

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/ls4...-thread-2.html

The other is that with age they do not exert as much force as when new. When new one could be used, it would open and keep the hood up fine. After about a year I swapped that single with the other fresh single since I bought them as a pair. After a year it wore in and then both units were installed. No hood bowing and the open and close with both is fine. At ten years, they have done well considering the OEM units died ~ 5-7 years.

Interesting that you put them on the scale to test. That gives us some feedback to the gas pressure.

dicer

The ones I tested were not brand new, I just got them at a wrecking yard. But they are the same as the new ones I just installed. They don't look too old. I have read the hood bowing posts from the past. I can't see how they would cause that when the hood is closed. The pressure is pushing from the firewall mount point towards the front of the car. Any bending would happen during the hood closing. Just can't happen after its closed, the ratio just won't allow it no matter how powerful the struts are, their strongest ratio is when the hood is almost all the way up. If anyone installs the struts with out first compressing them it could cause a bent hood because out of the package they where stuck. It took a lot of pressure to unstick them almost twice of what normal would be, and that could cause a bent hood I think.

dicer

Here is some good info.

I got the new struts at Autozone, on the package it says Mighty Lift !, 4572 Made by AVM Industries.
It seems there were a lot of people that liked Strongarm lifts in the link you gave me.
Well when you go to the Strongarm web site they talk about the high quality made in US struts made by AVM Industries, and this is the same strut sold by "Liftsupportsdepot.com" which is the ebay unit I think everyone liked. And listed by the same 4572 number, this is for Gen 1's.

Strongarm
http://strongarm-struts.com.au/

I would think by now with the known hood problem on the gen 1 ls400's that all the strut places would have the correct pressures sorted out.