DAMN RATTLE I HAVE CONQUERED YOU!!

[Legacy777]

I found that damn rattle tonight that's been driving me nuts since the swap. I took apart the dash again, and it just seemed like it was up in the dash....but there's no metal up there. I pulled into the garage several times, and could hear it from outside.

I had a friend come over, and stick his head under the engine bay while I let off on the clutch a little with the brake on....yeah I know....reall good for the clutch. He said it's either below the ignitor, or behind the firewall. I take a gander and start feeling things......low and behold my dumb crack ass forgot to tighten the bolt that holds the pitch stop mount to the chassis!!! I must have loosened it enough so it would move, but never tightened it back up.

So I tightened the little whore up, and BAM, no more rattle!!!!

I now have to put my dash back together again. The one weird thing though is that my gas gauge went all the way to E randomly.....I wiggled the gauge cluster, and it came back up to 1/4 tank. I thought I had a little more then that, but I might be mistaken. Hopefully none of the wires got loose or messed up when moving the cluster around.

And I got the clutch adjusted so it doesn't rattle and there's still a little play......so the two main issues I had are taken care of.

Ok....I'm done rambling

[vrg3]

Hahaha... Nice. That's cool that you found the rattle. This whole time I've been thinking about all the rattles my car makes and how you were probably just being anal retentive... But I guess a loose pitch stop mount would be a big enough rattle to bother even me.

[Legacy777]

yeah.....I have small rattles and shit....that's normal.....and to be expected with all the stiffer bushings. But this was just a nasty metal on metal noise that just drove me nuts.

[BAC5.2]

Josh, those stiff-bushing rattles kind of grow on ya, huh? I certaintly drive a bit smoother because of the groans and shakes and noises that come from my car due to engine and tranny mounts and stuff.

I really want to do the Group N pitch stop mount. That just seems like it will tighten up the front end even more.

[Legacy777]

honestly I don't think the pitch stop does much of anything. I've got the sti engine & tranny mounts. Under normal driving I didn't get the rattle, it was only when I bogged the motor did I hear the rattle.

I had thought about getting the pitch stop, but I really don't think it'd do much.

[BAC5.2]

Well, apparently, it will help with the jerkiness when going off-throttle at slow speed while in gear.

My car shakes like a sumbitch when engine braking at slow speeds, I think the pitch stop would help that a good bit.

[Legacy777]

hmmm......interesting. I'll have to see how she runs now that it's actually hooked up. It's gotta help more then it was before. If anything, the sti pitch stop mount is pretty cheap.

[BAC5.2]

Apparently, they came on early impreza L's as stock? Can someone verify?

[vrg3]

I heard somewhere that the WRC cars don't use pitch stop mounts at all...

[entirelyturbo]

My butt-dyno was WAAAY out of tune back then, but when I put in my new pitch-stop after the old one was dangling unattached, doing nothing, it did feel like maybe the engine was transferring more power to the wheels, but like I said, I was probly just excited that I got the motor mounts done...

[evolutionmovement]

I've had the bolt fall out of the end of my pitch stop a few times and never noticed any difference.

Steve

[kidatari]

I heard somewhere that the WRC cars don't use pitch stop mounts at all...

I beleive that this is from the entire engine/tranny being shifted down and towards the firewall. It doesn't leave a whole lot of room for a pitch stop.