Vibration!!! PLEASE HELP!

[PerformancEng]

I have a customers car in the shop, 03 Protege5. It has mazdaspeed front and rear sway bars, axr 70? front and rear mounts, injen coldair,Header, greddy evo exhaust, takico blues, h&r springs.

Now whats happening is in 4th and 5th gear at only 3k rpms there is a vibration, sounds like metal on metal (almost like if your exhaust was rubbing on the floor). The noise is deffinatly comming from the front. The customer had oem struts in it that were riding on the bumpstops so i though for sure that was it... unfortunatly it wasnt.

DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY IDEA!? i dont even know where to look anymore

Thanks

 

[Nutari]

check if the header/exhaust is hitting any crossmembers or oilpan.

 

[Captain KRM P5]

exhaust heat shield above the shifter linkage perhaps...

 

[PerformancEng]

The owner put a cat right above the crossmember which i first thought what the noise was. the heatshield on around the magnaflow cat has about 1/4" from the crossmember and the heatshield. wile we had it on the lift we shook the exhaust pretty violently to see if we could get it to hit anywere and we could not. It is much more of a hard metal on metal sound than a heatshield.

 

[2003newlyack]

sounds like it'd be the midpipe, if so there have been issues with MAM's midpipe rubbing.. I know mine has a slight sound which sounds like how you described at 4k with the MAM midpipe

 

[ProtoType5]

I'd guess Mid-pipe to front transverse member love....I've got them rubbing at around 3500 to 4000rpms...My solution was to add a couple washers between the cross member and the frame....Still rubs occasionally....Good Luck...

 

[Tasty]

I have a customers car in the shop, 03 Protege5. It has mazdaspeed front and rear sway bars, axr 70? front and rear mounts, injen coldair,Header, greddy evo exhaust, takico blues, h&r springs.

Now whats happening is in 4th and 5th gear at only 3k rpms there is a vibration, sounds like metal on metal (almost like if your exhaust was rubbing on the floor). The noise is deffinatly comming from the front. The customer had oem struts in it that were riding on the bumpstops so i though for sure that was it... unfortunatly it wasnt.

DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY IDEA!? i dont even know where to look anymore

Thanks

Hmm, what shop do you run? Just want to know so I don't take my car to a guy that has to look for solutions on a forum.

 

[jersey_emt]

Hmm, what shop do you run? Just want to know so I don't take my car to a guy that has to look for solutions on a forum.

WTF whoa...what's with the attitude? There's nothing wrong with someone asking for help with a problem. You can't expect every shop to be an expert on every single car out there, he was simply asking to see if it was a common problem with a well-known solution.

Cool it.

 

[pasadena_commut]

Hmm, what shop do you run? Just want to know so I don't take my car to a guy that has to look for solutions on a forum.

Cut the guy some slack. He's dealing with a modified car and having eliminated the obvious he's now trying to figure out which of the mods is the non-obvious cause of the problem. This is a reasonable place to ask since the people most likely to have experience with these modifications can be found here.

Or to put it another way, why should every auto mechanic know that such and such a suspension mod vibrates under certain conditions if the person who installed it didn't torque such and such a nut to the appropriate spec? Better to ask here than to have to strip the mods off the car one at a time until the noise went away. If I were the customer I'd much rather he ask here than do all of that work and charge me for the labor!

 

[Blake]

Heatsheild had the same problem, and my exhaust wasnt even hitting it.

 

[rednecks_r_us]

My heatshield was vibrating against my shortshifter. Eliminated the heatshield entirely and got kartboy exhaust hangers and solve a few of my rattles.

running the hardest compound of AWR motor mounts adds to my dash vibrating but I solved that with a bigger stereo. Now then main vibration I hear is my wing and rear bumper...... it never ends.

 

[redpr5]

^spoiler vibration is an easy fix...lots and lots of weatherstripping ftw!

i took mine off and apart, weather stripped it entirely, inside and out. no more spoiler rattle. now ive just got the ANNOYING exhaust rattle and the bumper rattle (both from my subs)

 

[orng1]

I agree with these two , I'd rather a tech ask than have him take my car apart and still possibly have a problem or worse yet be given a completely stock car back. You'd be really surprised how much the engine can move under load, if the car has an aftermarket exhaust and the engine is moving around under load it can cause the noise. Try removing the heat shield and see if that gets rid of the noise, mine was rattling so it went in the trash. Good luck.

 

[PerformancEng]

Hmm, what shop do you run? Just want to know so I don't take my car to a guy that has to look for solutions on a forum.

Performance Engine and Machine is the company. You are more than welcome to come and apply for a position. Since you are such a smart ass im sure you know everything about every car we work on. Its a lot easier and more nice to the customer(money wise) to ask a question on a forum after hours and hope for some answers by other people that own the same vehicle than have me sit under the car all day at 90$ an hour and tell him to keep throwing money at it and hope something works. But im sure you would have no problem with that right? ... thats right i forgot you wouldnt because all you have to do is sit in any car and KNOW whats wrong with it.

I have a few 1000hp+ bbc motors in the shop that we are putting together maybe you can come help put them together because im SURE you know how to do that with all of your experience?.. or maybe tune my 1000hp+ 4cyl on your chassis dyno?

I got an application on the counter.... waiting..

to everyone else, sorry for the long post about nothing. I appreciate your input very much and so does the customer. He has not brought it back in yet due to snow and whatnot we have here right now. But thanks to this forum i learned what a clunk bracket was...THANK GOD!!

 

[ChopstickHero]

yeah, my guess is cross member. take that off (4 big bolts) and add some thick washers.