Raising the car causing clunking sounds?

[Lol_Traction]

Hi all. First all, I’m pretty new to the chassis as a whole and consider myself a novice when it comes to suspension tuning. After buying the car I incrementally raised the ride height every month for a few months to where it sits now. Previous owner was about low and slow and I was not. Went from no gap and a slight tuck to about 3 fingers and possibly higher as I plan on getting some meaty tires for the 18x9.5s.

However I started to notice that there is some clunking and a sharp tap occasionally coming from the corners. Primarily in the rears but sometimes in the front. It occurs pretty randomly and only at low speeds especially when one side is under load (or potholes) and the other side isn’t like those speed bumps with a gap in the middle. I would take driver side wheels through the gap and the passenger side goes over the bump. I didn’t notice this very much when the car was lower.

I’ve looked around the forums and read it can be sway bars that are loaded too much during install. Other said it could be the end link is not adjusted correctly. My noob intuition is saying it could be the swaybars are loaded at the much lower ride height and are not set to the raised height I put it at. I’ve raised it nearly two inches. This also got me thinking, which I could be completely wrong, that if the sway bars are loaded too much it may account for the bumpy feeling low speed ride when taking an onramp into a freeway. Or almost a sensation that my coilovers are not given enough space to fully compress and depress. The spring rates are 9k/7k. Not sure if they are on the stiffer side of things but anything with a “racing” in their name I assume they will be harsh on crappy cali roads anyway.

I plan on getting the car off the ground on jack stands this weekend and was hoping to get some guidance on what I can start looking at and to make a sort of checklist as I wouldn’t know where to start. I was thinking about reinstalling the endlinks with no preload. Any help would be awesome!

Car setup:
Buddy Club coilovers with possibly provided adjustable endlinks in the front.
Perrin front and rear sway bars
Whiteline rear support bars
Whiteline trans mount insert
Whiteline diff bushing insert


Thanks!

[86MLR]

I would hazard to guess the front end links if they are aftermarket.

My MCA coils came with end links to suit a 20 mm drop.

If you have raised it back up to stock height i would look at their length.

OEM front end links are approx 245mm centre to centre.

But, the rear does it to?

Are the rear links OEM or Whiteline?

Rear end links are around 95-100mm centre to centre (hard to measure accurately because they are still installed).

[Lol_Traction]

Im going to guess that the rears are oem. But Ill know for sure when I get under the car. The fronts probably came with the coils but the rears usually dont is my guess.

The main reasoning for me thinking its the swaybars being loaded is when I 3-wheel onto my driveway, it would tend to bounce a bit when I take it slightly too fast. Not sure if thats the reason. My old Z used to just do one solid thud and done without the bounce.

I actually raised the car to its current height a week or so ago, but really started noticing the noise the last two days. In fact, on a completely unrelated way, it started being more prominent after I did a clutch pedal adjustment. haha