Tokico D-Spec popping noise
 

About a month ago I started getting a popping noise from my front driver's side suspension area. The noise happens at low speeds when turning the wheel quickly or if I brake abruptly and then accelerate (load and unload suspension) and sometimes over bumps. The passenger side has also started making the same noise.

Problem is very similar to this thread:
https://www.rx8club.com/showthread.p...hlight=popping

After me troubleshooting the issue and my dealership spending a couple days on it, and replacing the swaybar endlinks and bushings I'm still having the problem. My dealership wants to put my stock shocks back in as the next troubleshooting step. I was skeptical because my D-specs are only about a year old (also have Tein S-tech springs).

After leaving the dealership I thought I would do a little experimenting. So I set the shocks all the way to firm and drove around an empty parking lot to see if the noise was any different. I couldn't really tell a difference. So I stopped and set the shocks all the way to soft. I set the driver's side first, while adjusting the passenger's side the driver's side shock popped while just sitting there!

OK, so now I believe it's the shocks. So any idea why both would go bad at the same time? Are D-specs serviceable? Anyone have an opinion on why this is happening or if there is anyway to salvage the shocks? I don't really feel like buying another set of shock and am not crazy about the idea of running OEM shocks with Tein springs.

Is this what you are talking about?

http://www.finishlineperformance.com...5-08-1948a.pdf

Bad shock.

I have the D-specs and I had a popping noise in the right rear from day 1. I got the shock replaced under warrenty and now more problem. When I took it apart I could feel and here the pop when compressing and pulling on the shock by hand.

I also had the sway bar noise after I replaced by sway bars with the RB sways and its a different noise. In my case the end links were just a little loose.

Thanks for the input, but I did state in my post that we tried replacing the endlinks (due to this TSB actually). I'm really asking for advice on the shocks as I'm pretty sure I've narrowed it down to them since the one made the noise when the car was just sitting there after I adjusted it.

Great, good to hear someone's had a similar issue. Strange that both mine have started doing it at the same time. Unfortunately Tokico needs the original invoice to make a warranty claim and I can't find it anywhere. I have all the other paperwork that came with the shocks, but no invoice. I purchased them from DPE (former forum vendor, now out of business) and I think they emailed the invoices out and I may have accidentally deleted it. I PMed them, but I doubt they are active here any more. I guess I'm SOL.

Well, DPE's customer service is still awesome even though the company no longer exists. Phil emailed me a copy of the original invoice just a few hours after the PM. So, hopefully I can get these replaced by Tokico. Thanks Phil!

Update on this story. I decided to have Corksport swap my OEM shocks in (partly because I wanted a fresh set of eyes to have a look at my car). The shock swap didn't fix the problem but the tech there noticed that one of my motor mount bolts wasn't tightened all the way down, but he couldn't tighten it any more (it was seized up).

I had my engine replaced recently... about the same time this noise started. When I first brought it to the dealership I insisted that it was something to do with the install and asked them to check their work and specifically the motor mounts, they said all was fine and that it was definitely a suspension problem.

Took it back to the dealership and they replaced the motor mount and even put my Tokicos back in for free. No more knocking!