About 2 months ago I tryed to adjust my ingalls stiffy back to a softer setting.. The vibrations at idle were really starting to bother me.

So I started to loosen the adjust nut and I realized that it was frozen on there and it would not move at all. I'm sure I didn't over tighten it and it wasn't less then 10mm at anytime.

I tryed to spray some WD-40 on it and that didn't work.. Now the stiffy is making an odd noise everytime I hit the gas in a low gear or if I take a turn kind of fast. Almost like a clicking sound..

I e-mailed ingalls about it and they want me to e-mail a picture to them.. I haven't had a chance to borrow my friends digital camera, so until then I'm not sure if they're going to replace it or not.

The metal on the adjusting nuts seems VERY soft. If anyone has adjusted the stiffy before they probably know exactly what I mean.. Even the correct sized wrench will scratch the metal very easily.

Has anyone else had this problem?

 

Hmmm, I have been looking at buying a stiffy for a while now but I have heard of several of these things breaking. Thanks for the info and keep us informed on what happens.

 

I have had the metal scratch before. It's because it's an aluminum based metallic blend. It's made for lightweight and durability, but anything with aluminum in it will be soft unless it's an aluminum/titanium alloy. The lock nut has not be hard for me to adjust but I have very little room in between the DC Sport CS2 strut brace arms. Kind of a pain, but yes, the metal is really soft.

As for the clicking sound, it seems as though the diaphram inside may have been damaged (i believe that is how they are designed). Also, for excessive knocking when it was tight, did you ever put any type of deadening material under the strut brace? I did and it helped a good bit. Make sure it's not wider than 15mm and/or smaller than 10mm or it won't work at all. For the longest time I had mine at around 20mm b/c I though it was the difference from the nut near the strut mount to the lock nut and not the lock nut to the body of the damper itself. Ever since then I've noticed a huge difference. I over tightened it just to see what it would do and it was rough as crap. The whole car felt like it was going to fall apart.

Try taking it off completely (the two mounting bolts on each brace) and try to adjust it when it's off the car. Just an idea if you havn't tried it yet. But take the picture before you do anything that I've said, just to cover all your bases with Ingalls.

Good luck

 

The ones that break I am sure have either been tightened too much b/c they want that stiff race feel (or rattle, whatever you want to call it), or it's been "tightened" incorrectly like I did when I first got it. If it remains really loose, the engine may have so much shifting that it could damage the plunger/diaphram inside the body of the damper. Too much of a kick all of a sudden with 0 tension could pop the diaphram. With even a little tension, it would cusion the blow just a tad.

I've had mine for about 8K+ miles and havn't had any problems with it. Just be careful when tightening it b/c the metal is quite soft.

 

I had it on 14mm for awhile but I still had wheel hop. I changed to 10mm when I took it to the track one night, I really liked how it felt so I never tryed to change it back until now. I took it off the car to adjust it both times. I do have dyno-mat under it and I also used rubber toilet tank bolt washers to absorb some of the vibration (someone mentioned that trick in another thread).. The vibration really isn't terrible but when the A/C is on and you're idling there is a slight rattle, enough to drive someone crazy after hearing it for about 2 months. Now it makes a terrible sound everytime I take a turn or hit the gas in a low gear.. Once I take a pic of it I'll see how ingalls responds, I heard they're a good company so hopefully I won't have any problems..

I've only had it on my car for about 8 months.

 

If you can, get a vid clip up on here too.

Good luck with it all.

 

What I wanted to do when I had the Stiffy was just have a solid metal bar fabricated to fit between the bracket holes for maximum stiffness. Im sure the car would vibrate like a b*tch but I wanted the max effect and I didnt mind the rattling at all when I had it.

 

So, I sent them a picture last night.. and now they're asking me to send it to them.

I wish they wouldn't of asked me to send a picture to them if they were going to have me ship it to them anyways.

 

Are they paying for shipping?

 

I have to pay for the shipping.

They're actually being kind of rude about it.. I tryed to ask the guy a few questions through e-mail and he responds back "You're making this more complicated then it needs to be", when they're the ones who asked me to take a picture of it for no reason.

So I'll send it to them and see what happens.

 

Damn, that sucks. Good luck and keep us posted.

 

I'll probably send it in on Monday.. I kept it on the car because I'm riding down to the track tonight.

 

They'll be able to readjust it for you no problem. I agree that it is hard to tighten the damper and I tried to take mine off and do it but eventually it ended up with the whole damn thing disassembled lol. And when I thought i had it back together, it wouldnt line up with the bracket holes... I was finally able to get r back together but I was very close to sending it back to them. They were pretty nice about the whole thing. Sorry they are being rude with you.

 

selling mine if anyone is interested!! :D

https://www.scionlife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=140221[/url]

 

I just got hijacked!

lol, just kidding.