Weird Sound After Coilover Install (when moving steering wheel left and right)
 

hey guys, i just intsllaed stance coils on my car and i notice a weird sound (sounds like something hitting the spring) when i turn the steering wheel left and right. i made sure everything is tight and still making that sound. im thinking its bc i didnt have a torque wrench and didnt tighten the 2 bolts on the end links enough (i think its 80lbs of toque), so im planning to buy a torque wrench. before i do so any suggestions?

my wheels are 18x8.75 with 225/45/18 tires. i went under the car and had my gf move the steering wheel and the wheel is definitely not hitting the coilovers and the only thing i notice moving is the sway bar that the end links are connected to

PS the coils came with 2 extra end links, are these required? they look too long for the rears and too short for the fronts (and only facing one direction, while the oem endlinks has one end facing opposite sides) thanks

***also when the car was jacked up on one side (the front left, which is where the sound is coming from), the sound doesnt happen when i had my gf turn the steering wheel and i go under the car. only happens when the tires are on the ground

Is it a ting sound? Like while turning left and right (on ground) you hear a ting ting ting ting?

my guess is the spring seats don't allow the spring to turn on the perch properly, which would be a design flaw.

ergo, your suspension may also loosen itself.

BC Racing, your move

^^^

furthermore, have your coilovers professionally installed if you are not extremely sure of what you are doing. this isn't meant to be condescending but just sound advice to make sure you don't lose a lot of $$$ and time by making a critical error.

yes it does make a ting ting sound on the ground

was there any adjustment i should have made to the coilover before installation? i mean it seemed pretty straight forward during the install..

so is this something i should call stance about? anything i can do to fix this? i might just take out the coilover and take a look at it to make sure the spring can turn ok

coil bind?

Sounds like you didn't get a conical washer between your top mount and coilover.

you need these to prevent coil bind.

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/ha...-109/overview/

More spring pre load. Raise those top perches up. You should barely be able to spin the spring around while the car is jacked up off the ground.

Most coilovers come in the box with no pre load and you can easily just spin the spring around on the top perch.

do coilover normally come with those? i noticed theres a washer on the bottom but not at the top. another thing i should mention is my coilovers came are with swift springs so the shop i bought them from switched out the stance springs with coil springs. were they supposed to include that washer at the top? thanks

No, most don't. The top mounts used with most coilovers use a spherical bearing at the top. These are certainly strong enough for the axial load they are used for in a coilover, but they can bind when you turn the wheel. This causes the spring to wind and unwind as you turn the wheel. Once the spring winds and unwinds enough that the bearing is easier to move then the spring, you get that clunk sound as the bearing lets go and the spring untensions.

Any diys in this? What is the long term effect if I don't install this? I tightened the top nut to 17 lbs and it seems to lessen the noise. Also my springs actually don't move freely at all when jacked up

All you have to do to install those is pull the coilover out, remove the top hat, put the roller bearing on the spring, put the top hat back on, reinstall it in the car.

The reason this happens is because the spring seats don't have a bearing in them like stock so the spring can't spin easily as the strut turns with the wheel.

There's not really any longterm damage, but it can make handling a bit funky as the spring binds and unwinds in a corner.

You can try just greasing the spring where it meets the spring perch and upper seat, but the bearings are a better long term solution.

I don't have coils and I'm getting the exact same thing. It's been bugging the ever living F out of me. Current set-up. Turn In Concepts Derlin steering rack bushings and 245/40/17 on 17x8 wheels. Everything else is stock. Same deal. Only happens when it's on the ground and when turning the wheel back and forth. Reminds my of the sound and feel of a torque wrench.

Huh. I'm gonna bug Myles about these...

With your group-n mounts you shouldn't need them. If you had a mount with a 'pillow ball' bearing that's when they become useful.

My only issue about this style bearing is that they can dry out and need to be lubricated again.

Happened to me after I decided to DD the car through the winter... so all the salt dried it out. Still provides much less binding, but it's just a little noisy now.

I get the noise and adjusted the preload on the spring and most of it is gone. I need to do a little more adjusting on my rear driver side but as others said, with coil-bind turning does feel a little weird and that noise will get VERY VERY annoying!

Not preload. I think its your endlinks binding. Mine makes a grrrr sound when i turn it and its my endlinks for the swaybars. You have to make sure it can pop in and out easily when car is lifted. When it is lifted it should be neutral/no load on the sways.

most likely it is your end links for the sway bay rubbing onto the control arm. i had this issue too and had my friend cut and weld mine for me. currently no issues on the car and would be a lot cheaper solution than buying new end links (from what i heard even the whitelines rub as well)
http://i.imgur.com/W9pTSKW.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/I233epx.jpg

It confuses me to no end why they designed the sway bar like this. They could have kept the arms straight, and had shorter endlinks. It would have saved materials in productions, made the sway bar two bends easier to produce, and cut a little weight front the front of the car. Not to mention eliminating this issue. I'm also surprised that RCE doesn't offer a straight arm bar and endlink combo yet. In an aftermarket application it would also make the adjustable bars actually able to adjust the rate of the bar without needing extreme endlink angles.

Just in case it helps someone. Here is my fix. It looked like it was gonna hit for sure and I didn't want to take it apart a second time to change or shorten the endlinks. I cut off the second adjustment hole on the Hotchkis kit. I wasn't going to use it anyways. No noises whatsoever. Very happy with the handling now.

http://i584.photobucket.com/albums/s...ps1db0ac06.jpg

:iono: There are 5 bolts per strut. It's not rocket science. Get all those in place and torqued and you aren't going to have a catastrophic failure. It's really one of the easiest installs you can do.

Aren't the sway bars/most of the suspension off of the Impreza chassis?

Cost savings = using what you got instead of tooling for what you want.

You also need to set the preload, match the ride height side to side and get the car properly aligned.

This isn't something a kid does in the driveway.

I know kids that have done this in a driveway .. then they bring their car to my shop with cupped tires, issues from incorrect preload settings and complaints about their handling.

My coilovers were installed on a hoist and then properly aligned on a good machine so that all specs were to my liking and ride height was perfect side to side. The car feels great.

That's exactly the sort of thing a kid does in a driveway. This dude just wants to lower his car. He'll bolt them on, set the ride height (which you can do with a yard stick), preload is out the window since he's using his perch adjustment solely for ride height, then take it in for an alignment which he'll absolutely need. The car won't handle like if he'd had it corner balanced and expertly performed every other bit of setup possible, but it's going to drive just fine and he's not going to care.

The implication that one is in dire need of having a "pro" bolt on some coilovers, like there's going to be some sort of catastrophe is unreasonable.

This is my EXACT issue. What do I need to do to remove that pre-load on the endlinks? loosen the sway bar, then re-tighten?

:lol:
I WAS that kid with my old car.....
NEVER again. One of the many reasons why I don't want aftermarket coilovers/ spring for my car now.

Same. Sub to see what answer is so I can attempt it

Sent from my HTC One

my car makes this noise toooooo i hate it. any definite solutions for this? Really dont feel like reading all the posts since somehow this thread turned into "coil install difficulty level"... typical FT86club. :/

You'll need adjustable sway bar endlinks. OEM ones are probably too long in your case and it can result in just extra tension when turning the steering wheel or sway bar touching your control arms when turning, etc.

I do have adjustable end links in the front but can the same noise be produced in the rears also? My fronts have never been a problem. Never made any noise but my rears do. Called manufacture and they said that they do zero preload but still getting, to my intentions, spring pop?

Sent from my HTC One

What you want is no static load on the end links, so you really need to adjust them at ride height. Here's what I did:

1. Measure the height of the center of the passenger side hub with a ruler and write it down. (You could actually do either side - you really only have to adjust one side or the other)

2) You'll need 2 jacks to do this safely. First, jack the car up (with "jack A") at the front center jack point and remove the wheel at the corner you just measured.

3) Put the second jack (jack B) under the control arm (I put mine right under the ball joint) and jack it up until it is bearing the whole load.

4) Lower jack A a little bit to give it some clearance, then jack B as far as you can without taking any load of it. You're trying to get the center of the hub to the same level it is at normal ride height, and jack A is there because the car is kind of precariously sitting on jack B. Keep doing this till you're at the right height.

5) Adjust your endlinks till there is no preload. I unbolted one end and adjusted until the stud could slide in and out of the sway bar without any finagling.

This isn't absolutely perfect - your car isn't going to be exactly at ride height without compressing the suspension a bit, but I wouldn't recommend that with the scary jack setup. Good enough.

I thought it was coming from the front for you... isnt this what the thread is about? and the rear should be making any grinding noise if you turn it at full stop... if you disconnect your rear sway bar completely and it is still making noise then it may be something else in the rear that is making that noise. but turning the steering wheel should not make noise in the rear whatsoever.