chimchim

I got a front upper strut bar and installed it on my 6th gen EX. So then I was driving my car and as I turned into a driveway from the street, I hear a brief shift of metal and a resonating "kabong" vibration throughout my chassis. This happened a couple of times, so I loosened the bolts on the strut bar until I figure out what's going on.

Any ideas? Did something get screwed up? My bar mounts like a comptech.

Nelson

Check out your hoses, maybe you knocked something loose.

tokyoracer

u might wanna post up a pic... also, did you make sure to torque the nuts down to 36ft/lb???

Kai

Very BAD idea. Those bolts need to be fully torqued.

Don't drive the car until you figure out what is wrong. Putting a strut bar on a car should cause no problems whatsoever unless you seriously screw something up.

Kestrel

Just outta curiosity what brand of strut bar did you put in?

You should take out the strut bar for now, torque everything down, and drive it around again. If you don't get the sound anymore, than you know it has to do with your strut bar. If the sound's still there, then something happened while you were installing it.

chimchim

Whoops, I should explain better. The bar I got is like a comptech one. (yeah, it's an ebay pos *shame*) That means it mounts on the chassis NEXT to the pillars... where the factory has the pattern for drilling the bolt holes. The pillars on the EK (that's 6th gen, right?) have a big flat space between the pillar and the sidewall which is where a strut bar can be mounted. Since it's independant of the suspension, that's why I could loosen the bolts.

I'll try to get pics up.

The only thing I could think of is that, following the comptech install instructions, I drilled the 3/8" holes and used 8mm bolts (yeah the bolts are the perfect size for the bar). However, since the 3/8" holes aren't a perfect match for 8mm bolts, there's play. I think during the turn it caused the bolt to slip a bit, and therefore the vibration. Maybe I need some 8mm washers.

I don't race with my car... I just wanted to make it more fun to drive.

chimchim

Here's the comptech instructions.. it's exactly like this:



I'll try to get a real pic of my install too.

westcoaststyle

So, loosening the bolts made it not make that sound?

Did you remove or loosen ANYTHING else when you installed this bar?

Just drilling those holes and putting the bar on shouldn't have done much. I have a feeling there's more to this than meets the eye...

Bakeoff

Sounds like you had it just tight enough to hold it in place, but once you were driving, it was loose enough to shift around. Tighten it up and see what happens. Do you ahve a swap? Engine hitting the bar?

tokyoracer

hey mang... u better post up a pic of ur engine bay so we can all get an idea of what may be causing that sound. at the same time, remove the bar and torque everything down to 36lb/ft and then drive around. if there is some other sounds.. then u better check it out.

as for the 3/8 hole bigger than the 8mm bolt... it shouldn't have too much play if you had torque both the top nut and the bottom bolt down to 36lb/ft.

u might also want to check out the but that is on the bar itself to make sure that it is tighten.. since it's a ebay bar... u better make sure all bolts are tighten.