[s-cars] front suspension noise
Aaron Ryba
aaronryba at yahoo.com
Thu May 1 19:40:31 PDT 2008
Tom,
I am not quite sure if I understand the situation you are describing about the strut moving outboard and making contact with the tower housing. I assume you mean the new position from the modified camber plates needed when lowering he car. I will take a peak in there and see if I can understand that. I was able to get the proper alignment specs with the Igor plates.
I used new pinch bolts from the kit supplied from Blau. Maybe it is wrong of me but I assume they are the proper ones. They looked identical to the ones I removed from there. The only thought would be if I over-torqued those than they would have stretched and may allow some play with the ball joint grooved shaft that is held in place there by the bolt but I was pretty conscious to do everything by the book when buttoning her back up.
I knew about the cupped washer mishap from reading other people's posts and I made sure to put that back in and put it in the correct position so I know that isn't the problem.
Besides these issues the new suspension is amazing. A night and day difference from before when the car had the original suspension with 140k miles. I have never upgraded a suspension before so maybe I am just happy as a pig in you know what but the handing is great. I can really feel the car pull itself around corners when I throttle steer through, it almost feels like there is rear-wheel steering when I give it gas around hard corners. There is noticeable bump and jounce driving around town and going over small bumps which I was a bit surprised with since the overall ride isn't nearly as stiff as I had been led to believe. I could have even gone with the race springs if I wasn't turned off by the way to low ride height. It is very nice to stop the car and not have it dive down and bounce back up again. On/off ramps are my new playground!
The car looks alot better now too sitting lower and I haven't had any problems pulling up to parking curbs or scraping lower fascia going over driveway entrances and such. Overall I am really happy but I should be as it took me about 5 weekend working on the car mostly by myself to get the project done. As I did the procedure I realized I didn't really have to replace all the bushings I did, especially at the rear but I already had everything out of the car and had the parts on hand. Therefore there isn't as much of a noticeable difference with the new bushings as much as from the springs and struts. If I only replaced those it would have been about 1/4 the work but know I have the peace of mind I can get another 150+ miles out of the setup.
I also threw on some SS braided brake lines and there is definitely some better feedback. I know everyone is going for the Porsche BBK upgrade but with the new lines the stock brakes aren't all that bad for some hard street driving. Much better than the wife's 04 Passat GLX brakes.
Thanks for the feedback.
----- Original Message ----
From: Tom Green <trgreen at comcast.net>
To: s-car-list <s-car-list at audifans.com>; Aaron Ryba <aaronryba at yahoo.com>
Sent: Thursday, May 1, 2008 3:24:16 PM
Subject: Re:[s-cars] front suspension noise
Aaron,
The strut can move outboard far enough to hit the tower housing on
compression. The H&R's are the lowest and may need the top to be
outboard enough to catch and pop when fully
compressed. The fix is to trim the tower housing a little to make
clearance. I am not sure the Igor mod will allow enough camber
correction to cause interference, but other plates will. Were you
able to get the alignment camber corrected to spec?
The pinch bolt needs to be torqued properly, of course, but I don't
think it can move with the bolt in place. My replacements have all
fit pretty snugly. If I had doubts, I would be torquing it right away
since the sway bar can put a lot of force on the control arm. There
have been installers leave out the cupped washer on the top of the
insert since it fits on top of the bump stop that is no longer used
and may appear unnecessary on the Bilstein, but this leaves extra
room that the threads may not be able to take up. Failure of the
upper strut mount can result since the washer spreads out the
load on the upper mount bushing.
How do you like the new suspension feel and the steering response?
Tom
> Date: Thu, 1 May 2008 10:34:25 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Aaron Ryba <aaronryba at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [s-cars] front suspension noise
> To: stott at gwi.net
> Cc: s-car-list <s-car-list at audifans.com>
> Message-ID: <168508.50543.qm at web51407.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> No I did not wrap the bottoms in duct tape. I did read about that
> as a solution however did not do it on my recent install. I forgot
> to mention that in the initial post. It sounded like that was a fix
> for only a few people who for some reason could not get the strut
> caps to tighten the strut insert properly and that it was not
> needed for all bilstien installs. Definitely worth trying though.
> Its just that the sound seems like something completely different
> that what I imaging that noise to be like.
>
> The top nuts are tight but I will double check them.
> For clarification, the noise is a 2-part clunk as I hear and feel
> it during compression and then during depression.
>
> One other thought I had was that possible I hadn't torqued the
> strut pinch bolt properly at the bottom where the control arm ball
> joint connects up. The noise sounds like what I would imagine if
> there was some play there and the ball joint was pushing up into
> the pinch connection in the bottom of the strut them popping back
> out into place. I noticed when reinstalling this part that if the
> bolt is not in place the ball joint does have room to move further
> up into the pinch socket.
>
> Aaron
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Stott Hare <stott at gwi.net>
> To: Aaron Ryba <aaronryba at yahoo.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, April 30, 2008 10:19:12 PM
> Subject: RE: [s-cars] front suspension noise
>
> Front Bilstein top nuts tight? Did you wrap the bottoms in duct
> tape? They
> shouldn't shift around when tightened as the bottoms are dished/
> domed and
> the top nut is a taper fit, but odd noises have been tracked to
> rattling
> front inserts before.
>
> My .02
> Stott
> 95 S6A
> 01 TTqRoadster
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: s-car-list-bounces at audifans.com
> [mailto:s-car-list-bounces at audifans.com] On Behalf Of Aaron Ryba
> Sent: Wednesday, April 30, 2008 9:55 PM
> To: s-car-list
> Subject: [s-cars] front suspension noise
>
> I just replaced entire suspension system with H&R sport and
> Bilstein sports,
> Igor plates, all new bushings everywhere, etc. Everything dialed
> into spec
> properly.
>
> I am experiencing a strange knocking/bump noise when the front
> suspension
> travels up. It only happens when going over speed bumps or other
> large bumps
> faster than normal. I have been checking and rechecking that
> everything is
> torqued properly and still no fix.
>
> The noise doesn't seem to happen on immediate compression but once
> the rear
> wheels go up over the bump (and front is down). The noise
> definitely comes
> from the front and I can feel it too.
>
> The only thing I did non-Bentley style was to tighten the front
> sway bar
> bushing clamps at the subframe before the car was on it's own
> weight. This
> seemed impossible once the subframe was reinstalled as access to
> the bolt
> heads looked non-existant. Also used flour instead of talc powder
> on those
> new rubber bushings. I have no idea if this is the issue but it
> does sound
> like the sway bar is making the noise. Maybe some part of the H&R
> coils is
> catching?
>
> Is this the internal bump stop in the Bilstiens? or the full
> compression of
> the springs? It doesn't seem like I should be hitting that so soon.
>
> I was very attentive to reassemble everything as required so I am
> perplexed
> about the noise. Haven't had a helper to put some weight on the
> front end to
> try to replicate the movement, also pretty hard to do with the stiffer
> springs.
>
> Anyone have an idea of what this is?
>
> TIA
> Aaron Ryba
> 95 S6 145k mi
>
>
>
>
>
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 7
> Date: Thu, 1 May 2008 17:35:04 -0000 (GMT)
> From: john cl?irigh <john at johncleirigh.com>
> Subject: Re: [s-cars] Subject: Oh Mr. Winter...
> To: "Tom Winter" <tom at freeskier.com>, s-car-list at audifans.com
> Message-ID:
> <27888.198.176.188.201.1209663304.squirrel at webmail11.pair.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1
>
> On Thu, May 1, 2008 4:35 pm, Tom Winter wrote:
>>> Now, now, John, no need to drag my name into this ;-).<<
>
> Oh, sorry, my bad... <wink> Kinda like offering your buddy a
> drink after
> an AA meeting, eh?
> --
> john
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 8
> Date: Thu, 1 May 2008 14:02:07 -0400
> From: "Joe Pizzimenti" <joe.pizzimenti at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [s-cars] Bose system pops with Alpine deck
> To: "Eric Phillips" <gcmschemist at gmail.com>, "Andrew Beckert"
> <abeckert at gmail.com>, "s-car-list at audifans.com"
> <s-car-list at audifans.com>, "john at johncleirigh.com"
> <john at johncleirigh.com>
> Message-ID:
> <521f4dda0805011102h58f8db34xfaac9bf563945314 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> Rip it out, run new wire.
>
> Easy! :)
>
>
> On 5/1/08, Eric Phillips <gcmschemist at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I hooked it up using the antenna/amp power signal to the amp turn-on
>> relay J225 (IIRC), just like the two other guys who I know of that
>> have a Traffic Pro in their UrS cars. I spent significant cell phone
>> time talking about the exact harness pinouts, and the implications of
>> doing one way over another. Let's just say my continued amp popping
>> was cause for significant consternation. :/
>>
>> Both of those Traffic Pro guys said the very same thing - "It should
>> work right out of the box." Those were the exact words, LOL.
>>
>> Even after doing everything in my power to make sure there was no
>> ground loop in the sound system anywhere, and still having the
>> popping, I had to just had to accept the "special" nature of my Bose
>> set-up. Short bus "special".
>>
>> Someday, I will have my revenge on Bose...
>>
>> Eric
>>
>>
>> On 5/1/08, Andrew Beckert <abeckert at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Sorry eric, my response was directed at the threadstarter, I
>>> forgot to add
>>> the footnote for trafficpro users. The trafficpro is one of the
>>> few units
>> to
>>> use a common ground (I believe it has no internal amp). I have
>>> no direct
>>> experience with it, but it *should* work out of the box. Your
>>> problem is
>> an
>>> issue with how the Bose amp power on/off mechanism was wired into
>>> your
>>> trafficpro, as opposed to general ground potential differential
>>> issue.
>>> Sound like the traffic pro was shutting down without switching
>>> the Bose
>> amps
>>> off. How did you wire the amp trigger?
>>>
>>> Andrew
>>>
>>> Sent from my iPod Touch
>>>
>>> On May 1, 2008, at 2:19 AM, "Eric Phillips"
>>> <gcmschemist at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Well, that was one of the first links I found when I was searching.
>>>> GLIs didn't work for me. Nor did running grounds, including the
>>>> common ground designated by the Traffic Pro, directly to the
>>>> negative
>>>> terminal of the battery. I did EVERYTHING I could to minimize the
>>>> amount spent to make this "cheap" headunit work. (Cheap because
>>>> the
>>>> guy was getting rid of it - "it doesn't work" he says. LOL. Works
>>>> great for me!) In the end, I spent quite a bit of time, and coin,
>>>> making the speakers not pop. I swear that I tried every solution I
>>>> could find in the archives here, in Audiworld, at Crutchfield,
>>>> on the
>>>> web in general...
>>>>
>>>> And the very strangest thing is that some of those other solutions
>>>> worked for some other UrS owners. Line level outputs directly to
>>>> amps? Worked for two other guys with UrS cars that have Traffic
>>>> Pro
>>>> retrofits. GLIs? Worked for guys on the C4 forum in Audiworld
>>>> with
>>>> aftermarket head units. Speaker->line level converters? Pooh-
>>>> poohed
>>>> by many, but they worked for several A4 owners.
>>>>
>>>> I think you have to go with whatever works, and that there is no
>>>> *one*
>>>> solution that works for all Bose installs, short of radical
>>>> Bose-ectomy.
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>
>
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