Well, I'm in need of a bit of help.

Installed the following a few weeks back:

1) TEIN SS+ Coilovers (no edfc)
2) Alta adjustable sway bar endlinks (front/rear)
3) Ireland Engineering Adjustable Street/Race camber plates
4) Ireland Engineering rear lower control arms.

To make a long story short (will post a detailed writeup of the install later) drove away after installation making sure to go over every pothole I could find (in NYC this is not hard) and everything was a.o.k. No noise anywhere and I was satisfied. Car handled like crazy and even at 500lbs/in (KenChan!) the ride was MUCH softer than I expected and just slightly stiffer than stock. Over the small bumps it was even smoother than stock. Definitely stiff over large bumps but overall the ride comfort is amazing! I have read only good things about the TEIN SS+ coilovers and have to concur with everyone else's sentiment.

I have set the dampers at 4/16, with 16 being the stiffest setting. Camber plates set to 0 (or as close as possible) as I wanted to have the camber set properly at the alignment shop.

Ride height has been set to TEINS suggested recommendation, which resulted in the following:

Distance between the center of the hub to the edge of the fender arch:

Front:
12.5"

Rear:
12.625"

I didn't want an excessive drop and this is pretty much as low as I will go.

Front



Rear




The day after, however, I noticed some clunking, again only on the front driver side. It's almost like a clunking/clicking combo. When I jerk the car and swerve hard left/right I can't force the car to make the noise.

Sometimes I'll be going straight on a perfectly flat road and it will clunk for no apparent reason.

The car initially was fine on the bumps over the drive side and only exhibited the noise if I went over a bump on the passenger side or hit a dip on the driver side. Now it seems to make noise over all the bumps but again, not when I swerve the car back and forth.

I thought perhaps the bolts holding the middle pieces of the camber plates were loose (I would have bet money they were loose because I thought I could turn them with my fingers jammed up in there). Dropped the suspension and checked the middle plates and the bolts were tight as all hell. Clunk clunk clunk.

I thought maybe it was the 6 bolts that set the camber that were loose but they weren't.

I did some research and though maybe the endlinks hadn't been tightened up properly.

Checked the links (the flat washer was on the wrong side for the fronts as per the instructions so I corrected that problem) however the clunking persisted.

To eliminate easily removable sources I removed my strut brace and parcel shelf (and had a multitude of wires and assorted junk dangling under the steering wheel). Clunk clunk clunk.

I thought perhaps I had not adjusted the endlink lengths correct. I followed Onasled's write up about how the lower endlinks should be loose and the car should be on the ground before tightening/adjusting. Still had the clunk (readjusted the front left only).

I put the stock endlinks back on both sides to see if it was the Altas. Still clunking and this time worse than before. Now, I did adjust the height on the driver front at this point because it was slightly (1/16") lower than the passenger side and I'm wondering now if the spring is either not sitting correctly or perhaps even upside down (need to double check this when it gets significantly above 25 degrees here in NY)

Checked the wheel bolts and they were tight as well.

I haven't gotten an alignment yet because I wanted to sort out the clunking first. Btw endlinks and lower control arms were set to match the stock lengths as a starting point. No noise in the rear or passenger front.

Heading to the shop this weekend but I was wondering if you all could offer some possible suggestions as to the source of this clunkage before I go there and rip the whole thing apart.

Ball joint? CV joint? Spring upside down? Spring not sitting perfectly (it looked lined up when I took it apart to look at the bolts holding the middle pieces of the camber plates)? Bad camber plate?

Thanks.

Shoe

 

Unfortunately Shoe, this type of problem is very difficult to diagnose without hearing it. Hopefully someone will chime in with some input from a similar experience. If not, then maybe we can meet at a neutral zone, and I can take a listen.

Did you happen to notice the condition of the lower control arm bushing on the drivers side? Maybe all that new hardware moved the stress to an already worn out bushing. Just a thought.

 

Good idea. I'll take a drive tomorrow night and try to record a short video of the sound..... The right side ball joint was replaced under warranty quite a while ago......so I wonder if it might have just gone on the left side.....

 

I wouldn't presume to do a full diagnosis, but since you mention it, I've had cv joints go bad in Honda Civics (high miles), and they go one at a time and make that clicking/clunking noise that you mention. They seemed to do it *more* while turning, though, so that doesn't match what you describe. Might be worth it to have them checked, though.

BTW, your car is loooow, but it looks bitchin'.

 

I had similar issue, but mine was related to the rear end links not being tightened accordingly. What I thought was tight, was obviously not. On a second attempt of tightening them, all was ok.

Good luck.

 

Thanks. Yeah, it happens when going straight and like 5 mph sometimes so I'm really confused.

How did you tighten the endlinks? With the wheels off or the wheels on and on the ground?

 

The drop does look good...



It's about time you actually lowered it, instead of using the 3 tons of stuff in the back to make it look lower.
My car is still faster than yours.

 

I had a similar situation with many of the same parts. The answer in my case was the large nut at the end of the strut that attaches the camber plate and upper spring perch to the strut. I was amazed that even though this was just a tiny bit loose, so much clunking could be generated. It sounds like you were almost there but I didn't see that you checked the torque of that particular nut.

 

Ah ha. I was thinking about that nut! Thanks for your comments. I will check that as well.

 

Check for vertical play of the spherical bearing in the adjustable strut mount. I had the same issue. There are some very thin shims that take up the play between the bearing and the spring clip that hold it in. Not enough shims and the bearing will move. If the bearing moves at all, it will make noise.

Good Luck,
Mike

 

Thanks for the suggestion, will check it out on Sat when I take the strut apart...

Shoe

 

check the end links on both sides, it probably loosened after driving, clunk is the biggest cause of clunks from what i've experienced (on other cars)

 

"Clunk is the biggest cause of clunks"

I like that.

 

Vader. It was the top nut indeed!

I took apart the strut today. Decided to take it completely out instead of risk breaking anything else while the strut was still attached to the car (cv joints, etc.).

When I put a 3/4" wrench (didn't have a 19mm damn it) on it, I was flabbergasted that I was able to turn it MORE than one complete revolution with almost no torque at all! On the teins there are grooves cut near the top of the shock rod (10mm) so I was able to hold the rod using a wrench while using the 19mm on the nut. Tightened it as much as possible and slapped everything back together.

NOISE IS GONE! Thank you all for your help.

I do need to get one of my alta endlinks replaced (or at least the heim joint replaced) since one of the nuts somehow bit the dust and would just continously spin without moving a mm.