Well, on the way home from work the other day, I drove down a road with a road surface with an almighty arched shape to it.

Needless to say, with my car sitting low and a lump in the centre of the road surface my car came into contact with the road, with an almighty bang and lifted me from my seat a little.

Pulled over to inspect damage and couldn't see much to be fair; as I can't really see under. Everything seemed fine and working i.e. Brakes etc...

Anyway pulled away and had a serious rattling noise when accelerating and ever slightly when sat in traffic idling. I'd had this noise a while, but only under heavy acceleration.


Nursed her home and jacked her up fearing it snapped an engine mount which i thought was wearing anyway or something but they all seemed fine....

Started her up and followed the noise, and here's what I found...



This bar across the underside of the engine bay, had been pushed up and was touching the exhaust.



Notice the gap on this photo.



Any ways, I tried just bending it down whilst on the car, engine turned off by this point. But it didn't want to budge.

So i took a 16mm socket to each end and removed it, bent it down so it would sit well below the exhaust. Replaced it on the car and took her for a spin.

Noise gone, even during hard acceleration.

Should have checked this ages ago.

Anyways, i figured I'd put this up just in case anyone else has the same problem, as its a quick, easy, cheap repair.

Nicely done mate, just get the forge braces, theyre much more rigid than the standard one which may as well be made of paper for all the good it does!

Good shout, I'll be ordering them soon then.

this happened to me on way back from mod nats and took me ages to find oiut what it was as sounded something alot more serious than bar tapping on exhaust hah

Yeah that's what I thought.

I'd had it a while but not as severe as it went,...

Needless to say I'm not going down that road again any time soon.

I'm glad you posted this as i've got a feeling this is where the noise i'm hearing is coming from, Will check tomorrow, Thanks

anyone know if the forfe cora d braces will fit? im off pvs at weekend and if they are there and cheaper might purchase one

Sorry, but i have to ask:
i cannot make out from the pictures if there is a gap between the exaust and the bar. Is there a 1-3 cm gap?


I think i have the same problem .. but on a Bravo

Won't the brace be severely weakened now?! I'd recommend a new solid one to prevent chassis roll.

aurick86 said:

Sorry, but i have to ask:
i cannot make out from the pictures if there is a gap between the exaust and the bar. Is there a 1-3 cm gap?


I think i have the same problem .. but on a Bravo

Click to expand...

Yeah, In that picture there's a 15mm gap, which I'm guessing is where it sits when originally built.

Magic Johnson said:

Won't the brace be severely weakened now?! I'd recommend a new solid one to prevent chassis roll.

Click to expand...

Well the bar itself was incredibly flexible to be honest, took no strength at all to bend it,

I'm gonna purchase the Forge braces just as a backup, as if this keeps happening, I'm sure it'll get weaker and weaker.

Did you purchase the forge braces?

Two weeks ago I went camping but the road to the place where i could leave the car was 2.5 hours away on a forest road; was not scared about that as i am used to doing this king of "light off-road-ing" with relatively low cars.
Well needless to say the road was pretty bad when going there, 3 days later when leaving it was much worse because of rain and big 4x4 cars.
So after 5 ours of hat road i had a new noise under the car..
Got back to civilization, got the Bravo with one wheel on a kerb(curbe) lifted the other side with the jack and that game me enough room to squeeze underneath it.

And as i thought the flat iron bar that supports the engine's mud shield (or whatever it's called) was badly bent touching the exhaust.
Took it out bent it back, also fixed the piece of aluminum heat shield to the mud protector (This cured a different vibration i always had around 2k rpm).
Put it all back together and now it,s as quiet as a mouse

@OP: thank you for starting this post!

Glad to help,

That's what the Forums for.

As for the braces, I totally forgot now the rattlings gone.

(*pops off to eBay to buy them.....)....

Here's the forge braces for information

http://www.forgemotorsport.co.uk/media/FMFGPSB.pdf

Was looking at this the other day when I had the car up on a ramp whilst doing the oil change as I have had the rattle for a while its been doing my head in :bang:think it needs new hanger bushes aswell but will look in to getting those forge braces cheers:worship: