wheel hop, banging noise, at my whits end

[FastMatt]

here is the deal

2000 viper GTS ACR

The car out of the blue a wile back started wheel hopping like a mad-man

The dealer told me it was the RR shocks, thy replaced them at $2600 each!!!

That did nothing

I have tried 3 brands of tires

That did nothing

I lowered the back of the car 2”, that seemed to help the wheel hop a lot but there was still a very bad banging noise any time the tires spin.

Then I found that the RT rear yoke could slide in , and out of the rear dif!!! The dealer told me that thy did not have the tools needed to fix this and that I was SOL!! So I removed the rear dif, found the snap-ring that holds the shaft in place had come out, I replaced the snap ring and re-installed the dif. The banging noise is still there any time the tires spin…

So I install a set of uni-trax ½ shafts , and ½ shaft lops, this did nothing, the banging is still there

So I remove the FT sway bar, thinking that maby some transfer will help, well it helped a lot with the tires hooking up, I can barely spin the tires if I don’t dump it at 4000rpm+, but if the tires do spin the banging is still there, it sounds like a freeking sledgehammer banging the underside of my car…

The dealer will not help at all….. thy told me I need to bring it to El Paso 100+ miles away….

There is also a very bad like “grinding noise coming from the back of the car when at high RPM in 1st, (and also in 2nd when the NOS is on)


I am about to drive this $89,000 hunk of junk off a cliff

 

[TOOOFST]

Matt i've struggled with the same conditions for years.I bought the new 345/30's,alignment,smoother shift should help.Check your frame for cracks with all that wheel hop.

 

[FastMatt]

think got I am not the only 1....


I am running the 345/35R18's now...

any idea what the noise is???


I should have got a zo-6...

 

[Viper Specialty]

Hey matt- Does this noise occur only when the tires are spinning AND wheel hop is occuring? if so, you may be hearing the driveline play smacking back and forth, as the bouncing tire will produce a "rubber band" effect. Check your driveline for excessive play. Also, I have to agree with above-check your frame for cracks and/or loose diff mount. I myself get a similar noise, but it occurs durring a bad shift-(still getting used to car) and you can hear the drive line flop from being pulled one way to being pushed the other. I checked my driveline play and fluid levels, all are excellent-just goes to show it doesnt take much with a HUGE engine and drivetrain to make some noise. You and I are both from 3000GT/Stealth Turbo backrounds, and things here sure as hell are different! lol.

 

[FastMatt]

the car now seems to have very little wheel hop... it is there, but nothing like it was...


I have no problem spending the money to fix the problem, but I just don’t want to keep replacing parts that does nothing to fix the problem...

 

[Viper Specialty]

MATT- see above, I edited the post.

Also- when you worked on the diff, did you check the internals? (Spiders, Ring/Pinion, etc?) Maybe diff bearings? If bad, those could make one hell of a racket and be a source of grinding noise too.

 

[MiamiJeff]

Daniel wrote, "...durring a bad shift-(still getting used to car)"

--

 

[FastMatt]

I'll do some more checking, but so far I have found nothing cracked, or broken... just a butt-load of noise... the funny part is that 1 day it had no noise/wheel hop, and the next day, it had a a-s load of it... the car does have 19K miles on it now (i drive mine) maybe that is more then thy were ever intended to be driven...

you got that Wright, the 3000gt/stealth are a hole different car. The 3000gt/stealths are built MUCH better, but the viper looks MUCH better

I have owned Stealth’s that had over 150,000 miles on there and did not have 1/10th the problems, or noises that vipers have at 10K miles

 

[Viper Specialty]

MIAMIJEFF- there may be one in the very near future. It didnt help though that I got the Roe Clutch pedal kit just as I started to get used to the original...

 

[FastMatt]

the dif looked fine other then the "cloud" of clutch pack dust floating in the pan

 

[Viper Specialty]

Really? I am actually very impressed with the build quality of this car. I went over it from top to bottom LOOKING for things to get pissed about... couldnt find any! 3000GT's in my opinion were of questionable build quality-or at least some factory components were not up to par. Such as oil pumps, synchro's, lifters, output shafts, transfer cases, driveshaft bearings, etc. Everything else on the car was **** solid though if they just would have fixed up those things.

 

[FastMatt]

you must have had a 91-92?


the 91-91 stealth RT TT's (3000gt vr-4's), had lots of rod bearing problems (dew to the cast crank), and the out-put shaft was small and broke if driven hard (18 spline)

but I have found the 93-up cars (steal crank, and 25 spline) to be like rocks... to give you a idea, my 93 RT TT made 1000's of passes down the 1/4 mile in the 11's (2 times a week to the track) , and the only think it ever broke was clutches...

 

[Viper Specialty]

I have owned a 91 SL, 91 VR-4, 92 VR-4, 95 VR-4. both the 91 and 92 had synchro/output shaft problems. None of them had good oil pressure according to gauges, and the 95 had SEVERE lifter tick at only 30K miles, which actually got worse with the addition of the new 97+ style lifters.

 

[FastMatt]

it is VERY common for the gauges to read very low, when the oil pressure if fine... if it is at the 2nd line up from the bottom at idle you are fine...

the lifter noise, comes with all Mitsu cars that use that lifter.. it's just noise, not a problem... but if you just throw a 0.010 shim under ec lifter to pre-load them a bit more, it fixes the noise for ever

 

[ACR Joe]

Some aftermarket shifters have stops that interfere with the trans tunnel under high load conditions. This tends to excerbate the objectionable noises of wheelhop that are normally associated with a fully independent rear suspension. Bear in mind the Viper was designed as a road racer. If you're bent on the drags, go for a straight axle setup.