Ok, I installed the torque arm a few weeks ago and haven't been driving the car much. THe "sledgehammer whacking the floorpan" feeling has gotten progressively worse. At first it was only when I would go from reverse to drive or make any HARD stops. now, if i hit a bump in a road 'WHACK WHACK WHACK" I feel a LOT of violent vibrations comming from the floorpan/shifter area. What could I have messed up on the install? I don't understand why it is thunking and clunking so horrendously. Thanks.

 

Mine is doing the same thing.....

 

ahhhh yes, the joys of the Spohn TA at its best
Everything you have described except for the whack, whack is normal. It should not hit the floor pan when hitting bumps. I would suggest re-torque all the bolts to make sure they are tight

 

Well, it doens't litterally hit the floor pan. It FEELS like something is knocking the **** out of the floor pan although it isn't LITERALLY hitting it. LETHL, does it sometimes do 3-4 knocks really quickly in succession? On some roads its like "thud thud thud" with little jolts I can actually feel constantly. On other roads it's fine like a stock torque arm. Every once in a while or on large bumps it just SMACKS the crap outta me. Feels like the shifter is going to come off in my hand. Is it SUPPOSE to do this or did I **** up somewhere? I have retorqued the bolts that connect to the axle, to the floorpan, tightened the transmission mount, grease everything up REALLY well...made sure EVERYTHING was tight.........

If it is KNOWN to do it like this, ok, then I won't worry. But whenever it does it for 5 seconds or so straight......I just wantt o make sure I'm not the only one with probelsm like this. It will only bother me if no one else does...

 

Sounds like ours are doing pretty much the same thing. I mainly notice it when I let off the gas and coast a bit. On acceleration it doesnt do it no matter what imperfections are in the road.

 

Is your exhaust hitting the tq arm crossmember or DS loop if you have one? Is your trans mount loose?

 

I have no exhaust past a one foot section off of the turbo, LOL. Trans mount isn't loose at the actually crossmember......Maybe at the actual tranny it is? I can check on that.

LETHL-Exactley. If I am giving it any throttle (Anywhere above 2000 rpm's or so) it is silent. Whenever I let off/coast/idle WHACK THACK BOOM THUNK CRUNK. I've been scared that it's going to tear up my car, LOL, guess not. Even this is what is to be expected then oh well!


Any people got a spohn TA that is relatively silent??

 

Check the TA bushing, it might be torn.

 

Don't think that this one really has a bushing on it......Unless I'm stupid. Thought it has like a rod/spherical end or whatever.

 

Does the TA mount to your tranny's tailshaft or do you have a relocation kit?

 

The Spohn TA mounts to where the original tunnel brace was. YOu remove that piece and it bolts to those 4 bolt holes, and also to the rear axle.

 

Look again...the SPOHN TA does have a tubular rod at end and it is designed to use the supplied one piece bushing.

Does your TA mount to your tranny's tailshaft or do you have a relocation kit?

 

I already responded to you. It is not mounted to the transmission, it is mounted to the the brace that was supplied with it. It is not a "relocation kit", it is how the torque arm came.

Yeah, it does have a tubular rod end. Which bushing are you talking about though? Where is it located?

 

SPOHN makes 2 kinds of TA's
#1 - one that mounts on the tranny, with separate TA bushing
#2 - one that has it's own brace
...you obviously have the shorter brace mounted #2 TA...your original post didn't specify which TA you had, I thought you had TA #1

 

I've got this one also.

 

The sounds you hear from having the #2 style TA is just due to it's design...its a lot closer to the DIFF and the movement will be more violent than the #1 style TA. I would say that SPOHN did their homework and that their design works, my guess is that noise you're hearing is just normal. Call SPOHN for more detailed info.

 

Thanks for the help man, sorry we were unclear about all of that. Didn't mean to come off as rude/an ***, if I did I'm sorry.

 

Looks like we're just screwed then. Heh. I'm gunna call up Spohn and see what they say tomorrow or Friday, see if there is anything we can do to make the noise less noticeable.

 

Sounds good. Definately post up if you hear some good gouge.

 

I had the same relocation mount torque arm on my car and it make the same clunking that you are describing. It is a combination of three areas that there are for the torque arm to move.

1. The relocation mount has one solid joint that has a small amount of play when under load (you won't be able to move it by hand, just trust me it moves while you drive)
2. The spherical rod ends at the axle mounting bracket are NOT the super high quality teflon coated ones that have no play... they move a little too.
3. One my torque arm, there was a thin rubber "gasket" glued to the base of the relocation mount where it bolted to the floor. This is there to "insulate" the car from vibrations, but its not a very stiff durameter rubber and will compress under load.

All of these leave room for the system to move ever so slightly, but the effect is that you hear loud thuds under the car.

The only thing that helped me was to torque the hell out of the non-bushing joint at the relocation mount (way more than the install recommends). This minimized the noises, but over rough roads and when going from reverse to forward (or vise versa) there was always a clunk. I decided to live without the torque arm since I did so little drag racing... But now my wheelhop is back, so its a trade off.

Good luck