TheNick

Yeah it sounds like its not coming from the suspension Jon. The only noises my car made were quiet high pitched rattling from the bearings. Which are to be expected.

As for "clunking" - sounds like it could be the CV's. There would be a distinct metal on metal sound if it was the bearings.

marks_lude

I thought the spacers were just for shuttering during acceleration, from when rollers (i dont know what they are called) move in and out of the existing wear grooves in the bucket. Swapping buckets side to side so that the load is applied to a "fresh" side was also supposed to fix this. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but if you noise is over bumps and not under throttle, the spacers might not be the fix.

IntegraR0064

I found another thread that sounds like what I have here - https://www.s2ki.com/s2000/topic/819...#entry20440721. That's a great way to describe the sound, it's as if a bed headboard is hitting the wall lightly from a bed being too close to the wall. According to his technician it's the bearings, I posted to see if he had actually changed them to confirm if the technician was right.

Yeah I don't think there's any effect from accelerating or not accelerating. I know I get the sound even if I'm just cruising at constant speed around my neighborhood, since that's how I was testing it.

Orthonormal

I have had a muted rattle from the back end since installing Penskes, using the stock mounting hardware. It occurs mostly at low speed, driving over slightly rough pavement. It is worse with more low speed compression damping. I have never figured out the source or direct cause of the noise.

dan_uk

I have a clunking that I figured out the other day is the OEM rear sway
I had briefly checked and tightenned the endlink nut but with one side detached I could see the play

need to get an allen key on it to properly tighten it

Random1

John, I had the rattle sound in the rear coming from the stock top hats with Penskes. When I did my last rebuild about a month ago I was able to get the shock shaft top nut tighter than in the past and the sound went away. I had tried this before, but I guess never got it tight enough. I used a lever (large wrench) between one of the top had studs and the center cylinder to keep it from rotating rather than the small hex on top of the shaft. The nut was then tightened until the shock shaft started to rotate and then pulled on the wrench once more and got it a bit tighter.

BTW I found the rattle was worse when cold which intuitively makes sense from an expansion/contraction point of view.

Hope this helps.

/end off topic

Random1

IntegraR0064 (Jon), how many miles are on the car and has it been launched hard (i.e. autocross or pro solo) a lot (100 or more)? This question is relative to the rear axles. I would guess that the hard launches are the biggest contributor to getting wear spots on the CV cups.

I ran my car in stock class (>250 hard launches with race tires) for a couple years before setting up for STR. Last year it was at 13" with no axle issues. This year my car is 12.5" hub center to metal fender edge and still no axle issues.

1wides2k

Try connecting those end links. Every time your suspension moves so does your sway bar. It will be simple enough to check.

IntegraR0064

It's got 26,000 miles on it. I bought it at 25,000 miles from an older gentleman who thought that you weren't supposed to rev it past 4,000 RPM so he didn't. I've autocrossed it once since then in 100% stock form including stock tires, and have never hard launched it.

I'm really doubting the whole CV joint theory at this point because I don't get any vibration under acceleration, and the sound is completely the same if I'm on the gas or if I'm in neutral just rolling around.


Thanks, I came to the same conclusion last week and tried connecting it- sound was still the same though.

I actually think this might be applicable - the more I drive with this sound the more it sounds like a rattle to me as opposed to my original description. Kind of a clunking rattle. This actually sounds like it could be the problem. I tightened the top nut decently tight, but not super tight - 30, maybe 40 ft lbs. I also just realized that there are no spring lock washers or anything like that holding the top hats on. I just used the hardware Nick gave me but it seems to make more sense to me to have a lock washer there to keep tension on the assembly, maybe I'll try that. Do you guys have lock washers holding the top hat on?

You're talking about completely stock top hats with bushings right? how tight do you think you actually ended up going - significantly more than 40 ft lbs?

robinson

I only used 20 ft/lb, per Koni, on my shock shaft nuts. I may try more torque if it works for you.