I don't know of an original strut brace for the 20V N/A. For the 20V Turbo, the FIAT part should probably take 5 mins to fit as it is just 2 bolts off, brace on, tighten bolts. This one does not clear the intake manifold on a 20V N/A.
Mechanically, the OMP strut brace is also very easy to fit:
- Remove the 2 inner strut bolts from each strut
- Align the length of the strut brace to the holes
- Screw the two "legs" nearest the windscreen down with the original bolts. These do not fit the front legs as they have a captive washer that is too large in diameter.
- Buy alternative bolts and washers and fix down front legs.
That is it.
The time consuming bit is removing the cables that are in the way.
On the left looking from the front, there are some cables in a holder, these have to be freed from the holder and moved aside. I covered them with cable tidies to give them some extra protection and tried to place them away from sharp edges.
On the right is a fuse block bracket containing three fuse blocks that is too high for the strut brace to clear. I removed the fuse blocks from the bracket. Removed the bracket from the car and bent the middle fuse block mount forward until it would clear the bottom of the strut brace. I then bent back the two mounts on either side so that they would be horizontal again when the bracket was bolted back to the car. Replace the fuse blocks and job done. There are two cream coloured connectors, one on each side of the car. These are clipped to brackets that I could not reuse. I just tucked these away in as safe a place as I could.
Job done.
It is not difficult but having a bit of time to pull things apart and have a think about meant that I damaged the least possible number of original pieces.
My decision not to buy the Turbo was that I wanted a car I would probably keep for a long time, and turbocharged cars are more highly stressed and I did not want to trade reliability for speed. With the world policing speeding so heavily these days, it was not such a painful decision after all
The only extra things that I have needed to repair/replace have been a leaking clutch cylinder/pump and one coil pack. Not bad for any FIAT in 11 years.