looking for some advice from anyone...

bought the tokiko/eibach setup, installed it with my mechanic friend. literally did it by the lexus book (torque specs and all). after i installed it, knocking noises appeared in the passenger front and passenger rear. the driver front doesn't make any noise and the driver rear makes a knocking noise once in a great moon. verified that i do have the correct parts for my 97 sc400. knocking noise seems to be getting worse or i'm getting more irritated by it.

took it to a tire/suspension place down here... they said we might have not tightened it correcty.... so i paid them some bucks to reinstall it and basically for them to basically tell me they couldn't solve it. all the other local shops down here doesn't want to trouble shoot it nor do the like to touch lexus cars that have aftermarket parts.

anyone have similar problems. if i put a piece of rubber tubing in the springs, it dampens the noise a lot. so i'm guessing, i need new rubber insulators for the front and the rear. pretty cheap at $25 for one. i'll also have to make sure to tighten everything a little beyond lexus specs this time.

will be doing this in a week. tearing apart my suspension and redoing it again.... not something i'm looking forward to doing. though air tools make it a lot easier to do. anyone have any ideas???

 

I tried the exact setup several months ago and ended going back to factory and am happy ever since

I learned the hard way through taking the suspension apart and putting it back several times that it's the inherent characteristics of the Eibach springs. You see the eibach have a higher spring rate than factory; the spring is pretty closely wounded so whenever you go over bumps and pot holes the springs are compressed and since there are no room for the spring to travel it all together goes upward and banged against the strut's upper bar. This results in the thunking/knocking noise that you hear.

In the factory springs due to the lower spring rate there are plenty of room for the spring to travel when compressed.

I got so frustrated with this setup that I sent the springs back to Eibach for further "analysis." In the meanwhile I'm extremely happy with the factory springs and don't think I'll be trying any after market springs any time soon.

 

i thought i was the only one that had this problem since i've only heard good things about this setup?!?

i also had that same theory as you... springs clanking against each other. i looked through the web several hours last night and people had similar theories with some fixits but may or may not apply to SC400s.

1) eibach springs hit each other causing the noise when going over bumps (normally at low speeds and not at highway)

solution: wrap some silicion tube around the upper part of the springs that seem to hit each other.

question: on my car, the driver side is lower than the passenger side. so if it does "bottom out" or compress to the max (causing the clank), then why does my passenger side make the noise and not the driver side?

2) eibach springs unseat themselves when going over bumps (normally at low speeds and not at highighway).

solution: some people have wire wrapped the lower part of the spring to the shock/strut ???? either that or buy some coil overs.

question: i can't imagine this happening because its our spring setup is still compressed even when the car is jacked up unlike some other makes and models. though this could be correct in some sense reason being is this; when i was modifying my toy corrolla, i read somewhere you should always match your spring and shock/strut combination (spring rate of springs should match the spring rate of the shock/strut). in other terms, you wouldn't put stock springs with race shocks/struts because you would want the rate of compression of the shock/strut to work in combination with the spring. so when i added suspension to my corrolla, i got the trd shocks/springs combo which was awesome. unfortunately for us, eibach doesn't make shocks/struts for our car and the tokiko/eibach combo may/may not be ideal since a lot of other people haven't had any complaints???

if i get fustrated enough, i might just keep the tokiko and put the stock springs back on

 

problem solved!!!

1)front passenger noises
the noises from the passenger front was coming from the stablizer/anti-sway bar linkage (part looks like a minature dumbell with studs point out in opposite directions). this part connects the sway bar with the lower control arm. got it for $58 from lexus but parts.com is cheaper (well, might be the same with shipping).

how i solved it??? opened my hood up and had someone push down repeatedly on the passenger front while i looked underneath which isn't fun!!! traced the noise to the linkage. took off the part and drove around and i didn't have the noise!!! bought the new part, put it on and good as new. the only hard part of putting it on and off is that you're gonna need an open end wrench and a small torx bit or hexagon bit(?) so that you can tighten it up. turn the nut on one direction while hte bit holes the studs in place. damn lexus certified mechanics could figure this out cuz!!!

2) rear noises was coming from the eibach springs knocking on each other. bought some heater hose (5/8" i.d. i think) from the hardware store, cut it into pieces (about 1/2" long), slit so i could place it over the coil and then used electical tape around the hose so it won't come off. then, you can slid it up the spring at strategic locations.
doublewhoosh also suggested that i could also use some nylon piece that is coiled up and used mainly for wiring if i every took my springs out to dampen the noise.

well..maybe this will help someone out there but it seemed like only my and sc400 had this prob.