Scott,
Ever since I installed the strutbrace I am hearing a Pop/cracking sound coming from the right front hard turns. I have checked and rechecked the torque on the 4 mounting bolts (on both sides) and have ensured that there is no pre-load. Any ideas?? My car didn't make this noise before I installed the brace. Not looking to place blame on the brace just wondered if anybody has any ideas or what might be the cause.

I am very impressed with the quality of the product.

Max

 

How much clearance is there between the strut brace base and your upper strut bearing??? Any rubbing there???

 

Riff,
There doesn't appear to be a clearance problem with the stut brace except with the fuel rail cover. The strut bar does just barely touch it so I put a small piece of rubber between the bar and the fuel rail cover. I thought that might be causing the noise but I removed it and the noise is still present. It is a fairly loud cracking noise but it only comes from the right side when under a load. It also occurs if I turn the front wheels lock to lock when the car is not moving. Again, none of this was present before I installed the strut brace.

Max

 

What is the history of your control arm and strut bushing? As you stiffen your chassis and suspension, you will exacerbate any existing weak points.

 

I think my strut bushings are original. The control arms were replaced about 25k ago. I am going to check to ensure that the control arms are still tight and the sway bar bushings/connections are solid. If all of that checks out I guess it would have to be my struts and/or the strut bushings. The front struts are overdue...they are original (96k miles)

 

On other vehicles I've had similar noises that turned out to be bad bushings on the sway bar or drop links. It was quite loud and rather alarming. If by chance they suddenly gave out due to increased stiffness in the strut towers that would be an interesting endorsement for the brace!

Ron

 

Is the strut bar hitting the hood? Just something simple to check. <img src="graemlins/jumper.gif" border="0" alt="[jumper]" />

 

[quote]Originally posted by MadMax:
<strong>Scott,
Ever since I installed the strutbrace I am hearing a Pop/cracking sound coming from the right front hard turns. I have checked and rechecked the torque on the 4 mounting bolts (on both sides) and have ensured that there is no pre-load. Any ideas?? My car didn't make this noise before I installed the brace. Not looking to place blame on the brace just wondered if anybody has any ideas or what might be the cause.

I am very impressed with the quality of the product.

Max</strong><hr></blockquote>


Max,

I'm tending to agree with special tool. I think you've found something that you didn't know about before. On our first test car, there was a popping noise turning the wheels as you describe. Turned out to be coming from the steering rack (or related components). Have someone turn the wheel as you stand in front of the car with the hood up. See if you can hear where it's coming from. If it turns out to be the brace, let me know off list and we'll work on the problem.

 

Thanks Scott et al.,
I do not believe it to be the brace itself. I too think that the brace has simply unmasked a weak point in my front susupension that I did not know about before because the front end was flexing. Unfortunately, I will not have an opportunity to get to this until next Saturday. I appreciate all the input/info/speculation. I will be sure to post what I find.

Merry Christmas, Max