Car shudders slightly under acceleration

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06-20-2005, 12:14 PM

#11

mikegarrison

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Quote:

Originally Posted by xviper,Jun 20 2005, 01:00 PM

Mike, in your case, I think this is a pretty good guess. A CV joint issue should be most prevalent if you accelerate in a moderate to hard fashion. An odd vibration at a constant road speed is more indicative of wheel balance and would change as speed changes up or down since an unbalanced wheel would have a tendency towards an ideal harmonic rotational speed. It'll get steadily worse as speed goes up and as you continue to speed up, it tends to lessen.

Well, whatever was(is?) going on in my car was both subtle and unusual. It did not happen all the time, it did not get worse under acceleration or with high speed.

Ray drove the car, and he felt it too, but was also unable to figure out what it was. CV joints seemed a reasonable guess for a car with 46K miles (a few thousand on the track). But the CV joints looked pretty good.

Besides a wheel balance issue I've also been wondering if it might be a problem with the dampers. It seems like the car is extra-sensitive to road vibrations, but when the road is perfectly smooth it doesn't seem to vibrate on its own, as far as I can tell). But it's hard to tell for sure, because it's not a bad problem. Car sort of shimmies a little from the rear.

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06-20-2005, 01:51 PM

#12

xviper

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Bad shocks (or dampers as you call them) can sometimes give a tell-tale sign by leaking. Inspect them carefully to see if you can detect any seapage.

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09-05-2006, 08:44 PM

#13

bentlink

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Quote:

Originally Posted by dawheat,Jun 16 2005, 09:40 AM

I've been noticing this occuring a bit more commonly, especially when the car is col and in lower gears.

While accellerating, around 4-5K, the rear seems to shudder a bit and then dissapear higher up in the rpm range.

Diff and tranny fluid was changed at 23K miles. Any thoughts if this is normal or whether it would be something (diff?).

I am the second owner, but since 18K, no burnouts, but there has been a open lapping day on it. Stock power, 04. Thx.

I had the same issue.

The dealer (Harmony Honda in Kelowna, BC, Canada) was going to change the diff.

I wasn't keen on them troubleshooting with new parts and guesswork.

Luckily, I read a few long forums here and finally determined it was the inner CV joints.

(My car had over 110 k miles on it -- and it was slowly getting worse -- especially noticable when accelerating hard and hitting a dip.)

The local dealer couldn't even find the Honda TSB that describes the issue (https://www.s2ki.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=275218).

So I bought used drive axles with low mileage (Honda calls them driveshafts) from
Pro Import Auto Wrecker in Abbotsford, BC, Canada (www.importautorecyclers.com) -- price was decent ($600 CDN) for both with CV's all in great shape.

Then had AJ Racing (www.aj-racing.com) install them.
AJ Racing is terrific -- gave me a quote (2 hours = $150 CDN) and delivered on budget and on time!

I is sooo smooth -- I am stoked! It is a new car...