Hey guys. I've had a TurboXS catback on my car since April and absolutely love it. No problems what so ever.

This past week, one of the board members here and myself installed the Berk HFCs on my car and after 2 days, I started noticing a rattle coming from underneath the car, like the center console area. I've noticed that it doesn't rattle when I'm on the highway (or i can't hear it anyway) but I had someone hit the gas pedal a few times and rev it high for me while i looked under the car and it looks like my exhaust is touching this black shield thats under there. Not sure if its a heat shield or not. Does anyone know what this shield does and if its safe to remove it? I tried tightening the spring bolts to see if the exhaust was maybe slacking but they were already properly tightened. I never had this before I installed the HFCs and its not coming from the HFCs. This is really annoying me.

Any suggestions? Thanks in advance.

 

no real suggestion except get under there and find out exactly where it is coming from.

I know when i installed my HFCs it took some pretty serious tweaking to get the bolts to line up. This caused my exhaust to shift slightly down bye the rear strut. This was causing a rattle.

Also check out your exhaust mounts are positioned in the rubber garmout connected to your cars framerail/exhaust mount. Sometimes if angled just right the exhaust hanger will press up against the cars hanger causing a rattle.

Rattle is a *****, no one situation is the same, you have to get under there and start eliminating things. Slow, painful process with a nice payoff at the end. Good luck.

 

Thanks Honda Killer, but thats just the problem, its not that easy to work on an exhaust from the ground on a lowered car . That said, I'm pretty certain that its the brace hitting the exhaust. I checked and there is a bit of play on the rubber hanger that holds the exhaust above that brace so i will go to a muffler shop in the next few days and see if i can get a new rubber hanger, maybe something that is a bit smaller than factory so that it doesn't hang close to the brace. I'll let you guys know if that fixes it.

 

more than likely its just a heat shield or something. Maybe it got bent during the install. Get under there when its not hot and make sure you have good clearance around the pipes, or just jack it up and have your buddy rev it and try to pin point it.

 

i also have the same exact problem, turboXS midpipe section is rubbing against that metal scratch guard? im running stock cats though.

anyone know what this metal piece does exactly? safe to take off? it seems as though the only two options are to take it off, or weld a metal piece to fit in between? (the distance between them is less than 1cm.)

suggestions PLEASEE

 

I called Berk and showed them pictures of the underside of the car and the tech (bryan) said that the brace (black w shaped looking thing) is prob on there for some structural rigidity. I'm hesitant to take it off so I'm going to the muffler shop tomorrow am to see about getting a tighter fitting hanger. I'll update soon.

HomErx55, prior to installing my Berks, i never had any contact between my turboxs exhaust (midpipe section) and the car. How long has your exhaust been on? Make sure that our spring bolts are properly tightened.

 

Is the right side of the exhaust towards the back of the car touching a black plate/box? If so, that's the EVAP Canister cover, which can be moved out of the way. I had this exhaust rattle noise with my Borla and this was the solution.

Click on this picture:

http://liljerk.morpheus.net/350Z/images/zbottom.jpg

Look at the TOP LEFT section right next to the exhaust - is that the black shield you're talking about? If so, then that is the EVAP Canister cover plate.

 

Arnold, thx for the great pic.

its the black W shaped shield on the middle-left part of this pic. seems important.. lol

 

Your Berks should not be hitting anything on the underside of your car.

Most likely you installed them wrong, improper alignment when torquing down bolts, therefore creating stress on certain welds, therefore the chance of your cats cracking has increased two-fold..

That's what you get for the doing it yourself..

 

Wow, another useless post by GSingh350Z.

I did not install them wrong, i do not have improper alignment, and i torqued everything down correctly. Dude, if you have nothing good to contribute why dont you just stfu, seriously. You always have to flame on peoples threads. Don't you have anything better to do? Please don't answer that question as I don't really care what your answer will be.

Anyway, back to the people that are serious about helping others out. I had the rubber hanger that holds the midpipe replaced today for a smaller one and that fixed my problem. Basically, my factory rubber hanger had a little too much play. Its being used as a nice paper weight on my desk now. The guys at the muffler shop didn't charge me a dime for the 15 minutes it took them to put the car up on a lift, change the hanger, and give me back my keys. I tipped them $15 as it has put my mind at ease now. Priceless. Hope this helps other members out.

 

omgg im gonna go get a new rubber hanger asap...

hopefully this works for me

 

Willie, I was going to suggest that perhaps your hangers have sank and are causing the exhaust to hang too low. It should not be hitting that brace, that's for sure. But, it looks like you beat me to it and figured it out. Good job!

 

Thanks A-K.

 

A little off topic here. But i have Berk HFCs too , and recently a rattle started... I went in to Z-Fever in Tampa and found out that the there is stuff inside the berk HFC that came loose and makes a rattle sound around 1500 RPMs.... anyone else have this problem with these cats?

 

It happens. To stock cats even. You need new HFCs, or switch to Test pipes.

 

Took off my Driver side HFC today. It was not the HFC.... The pre cat O2 sensor was loose.....