Intermittent vibration at 80 mph

[Whatwasthat]

It's a rythmythic, weird pulsating feeling. But I do not have the seat/back massager option on my vehicle. What could it be? I've had my tires balanced, however I do have thin 1/16"? wheel spacers up front to clear the calipers. Can it be bearings? Or rotors? Or ABS pump? Its only noticable at high speeds

 

[Doc308]

Did this occur before you had the wheels balanced? I've had to bring wheels back to have them rebalanced a few times myself. Sometimes places just don't do a very good job at this. Can you tell if the vibration is from the front (felt through the steering wheel) or rear ( in the seat of your pants)?

 

[pvmike]

Are the spacers hubcentric? If not, they could be slightly misaligned, causing a little vibration.

 

[OLDMNSX]

Were all of the lug nuts torqued, with a torque wrench, properly? Remember they only need 80 Ft/Lbs. I do mine in three steps, do all of them at 60 then all at 70, and then all at 80. This takes a little more time, but I think a better job.

I have watched some of these tire shop guys take a torque wrench and tighten until it clicks and then keep tightening. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to run a torque wrench, but you have to do it right.

Brad

 

[Whatwasthat]

Vibration was happening before the balance, thats what I thought was wrong so I had the wheels balanced. I actually took the wheels off and tried to get the spacers as centered as possible, they are not hub centric and I dont think the hub scentric spacers will help hold them. I then retorque my lugs nuts to 80lb. Still pulsating.

 

[OLDMNSX]

OK, another though.

You may have a broken belt on one of your tires. The tire would balance just fine, but when it had weight on it, plus the rotational forces, you would get the vibration. Also, remember that at 80 mph the forces on the center of the tire are much greater than at slow speeds

Is there another NSX that you could switch the whole set of tires and do a test drive? If this fixes the problem, switch one tire at a time, if they are the same size, till you find the bad one.

Is the road that you are driving on concrete or asphalt?

This is kind of a tough one.

Brad

 

[Whatwasthat]

Thanks for the thought. I'm suspecting it's these spacers. I'm thinking glueing them somehow to the wheel as centered as possible, just a little glue. Then have the wheels balanced again. But I will try my stock set of wheels before I do that. I'm just hoping it's not wheel bearings or some engine vibration.

 

[greenberet]

On my car, a vibration that came in waves when driving fast had two causes:

1) My aftermarket rims weren't engaging positively with the hub lip. The diameter of the central hole in the rims was larger than the diameter of the hub lip. The wheels were centered by the lug nuts alone and that wasn't enough. "Centering rings" can be used to fill the gap and ensure the wheels are perfectly centered.

2) One of my rear rims had a slight dent.

Once both of those issues were addressed, the vibration at high speeds went away.

 

[nsxpowered]

I have seen in other forums that mentioned tire plugs (used to fix a puncture) could cause a vibration, but no one mentioned the extend of a massaging chair so it is probably out of the question.

I've ran some 5mm spacers on the front wheels before and never had any vibration issues. The spacers did not have a centering ring also. The spacer I used was made of aluminum and doesn't look very high-end at all.

If something is off balance then you will feel the vibration at all speeds.

The NSX do have some sort vibration at around 80-90MPH which is not very apparent. Once you pass the 90MPH rate, the vibration disappears. Is it possible you are feeling this resonating frequency? This is felt more at the steering wheel then the seats.

I have had a wheel bearing go out on a C5 Vette and it didn't vibration, just very noisy when going over 40MPH, it would sound like WOOOOOM!! pause WOOOOM!! pause WOOOOOM!!... etc.

Try to have someone in the community test your car out and see if they can pinpoint the problem. Good luck.