junior-ae

I just re-did the suspension on my car. I put Neuspeed Sports and Tokico Illuminas on, replaced the axles and tie rod ends, and then had the car aligned and had the tires balanced.

I had a big steering wheel vibration between 65-80 mph, but after doing the suspension (and before having the tires balanced), most of the vibration went away. After getting the tires balanced the situation improved some more, but there is still a little bit of a vibration in the steering wheel in that speed range. I checked the upper ball joints when we did the suspension, and everything seems to be tight.

Also, I can feel a light lateral (side-to-side) vibration in the whole car in the same speed range. I can feel something in the gas pedal as I'm cruising down the highway that almost feels like something is grinding. I don't know if grinding is the right way to put it, but it is definitely something odd.

The brake pads are about half worn. I've never done brake work on the car (had it since last January), but I'm not sure if that's the problem anyway. The gas mileage bounces around a bit, but generally stays between 33-37 mpg depending on how I drive. I would think if the rotors are warped or the brakes are catching that the vibration would be more severe, and I would take a pretty good gas mileage hit.

I replaced the transmission and clutch not too long ago, and the transmission was rebuilt (Gearspeed), so I'm thinking the gas pedal "grinding" feeling doesn't have anything to do with that either.

Does anybody have any ideas on the steering wheel/gas pedal feeling? I'm not sure if they're related, but they happen at about the same speeds.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. The car runs good, and I'm going on about a 1500 mile round trip with it next week over Thanksgiving, so I'm hoping this isn't something serious.

Thanks!

PS The Neuspeed/Tokico setup is great so far. Definitely recommend it.

CaliDELSOL93si

what are you illuminas set at ???

junior-ae

I'm still playing with that, but on the ride home today they were set on 2 in the back, and 1 in the front (soft). I switched it to 3 in the back and 2 in the front for the ride to work tomorrow.

Like I said though, the steering wheel problem got a lot better after swapping the suspension. The gas pedal issue was there before doing any suspension work and hasn't gone away.

CaliDELSOL93si

because, my del sol used to do the same thing. i actually raised the car slightly and it fixed the problem kind of, then i ended up purchasing new motor mounts and now it doesn't shake at all. Check engine vibration, at that speed, chances are that might be a good guess.

junior-ae

What did you use for motor mounts? OEM or something aftermarket? I've already swapped one of them out, but that's because it disintegrated when I changed the A/C belt.

CaliDELSOL93si

Either Hasport Motor Mounts or Original OEM motor mounts. I would go with the Hasport over OEM.

CaliDELSOL93si

actually, you know what might be a cheaper alternative and a good idea instead of changing to hasport ($350 retail)....get some Polyurethane motor mount fillers, they soften the ride up and help prevent wheel hop and dampen the vibration.

junior-ae

Cool. Thanks. I'll look around for those.

I've been thinking it could be the mounts. The fluid-filled one over by the accessory belts ended up leaking a little bit once when I had it out. If that one is bad, that might be a cause for the lateral vibration.

Highmile

Are the tires new or worn a little? That could be part of it.

junior-ae

Another friend of mine was thinking the tires may be a part of it too. They're fairly new though. I think they're Arizonian tires...