chrishill 0 Posted March 2, 2004 looking for a little sleuth type detective work on this one. A few months ago i had a custom exhaust fitted, immidiatly afterwards when i pulled away hard in 1st, or booted it hard in 2nd/3rd i got some really nasty vibrations from the front end. of course i took it back for them to have a look at, and they fiddled a bit with the downpipe from the exhaust manifold and reduced it a bit, but they said really, there should be plenty of clearence (about an inch) between the pipe and whatevers under it (steering rack?) and to get my engine mounts checked out, which i did, and was told theres a 'bit' of play but nothing to worry about, definalty not an inch's worth of movement. I know the front of the car lifts when you accelerate, could that be a factor too? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kvwloon 0 Posted March 2, 2004 I had similiar thing after some monkeys replaced my 16v downpipe, every time i pulled away i got a mettalic rattling from front end. Turned out that on the heatshield which bolts around the downpipe near the bottom of the steering column, when they re-fitted it they fitted it with the bolts that go through the heatshield the wrong way round, i.e. the bolt heads were down-most. This means that when the nuts were fully tightened down, the tail ends of the bolts were protruding up and close to the car body, and when i pulled away would contact the car with a rapid rat-t-t-t-t-t-t sound! Turn the bolts around the other way (i.e drop them in down from in the engine bay rather than up from underneath) and no matter how much you tighten the nuts the bolt heads will never get nearer to the car body. Hope that makes some kind of sense and solves it? If need a bit more clarification of my crap explanation let me know and i can send a piccy. That's assuming of course they re-fitted the heatshield to the new exhaust, hope so, as it is necessary! Regds , Mark. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
chrishill 0 Posted March 2, 2004 is the heatsheild really obvious? i dont remember seeing one! :shock: can you see it looking down through the engine or would i need to be underneith? its definatly a sort of metal hitting metal sound, hard to describe really, sort of a loud BRR RR RR RR AP! noise. cheers for the tip though mark, deffinalty have a look for that. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kvwloon 0 Posted March 2, 2004 Your noise description sounds exactly like what i experienced! Just been out to take a look and refresh my memory (jeez it's cold out there tonight!) and i need to make some corrections. Seems that i actually had to put the bolts in from underneath, which is a lot more fiddly and hence not popular with average exhaust fitter. Now my memory has been jolted i reckon the bolt tails must have been hitting on the top of the steering rack under acceleration. If you look over the back of the middle of the engine, straight down, just above the rack , but below the two cable assys going to the gearbox, there should be a curved box profile section fitted around the exhaust downpipe just before the exhaust curves away under the car. Need to make sure it's there, and if so that it's bolt heads/tails arent close enough to vibrate against anything under acceleration. Think i had to turn the bolts around, and also move the whole assy up nearer to the engine to get rid of the noise. If still not too sure can post a piccy tomorrow. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
