ERA 289 FIA Sidepipe Rattle

[Cobalt289]

At idle, there's a metallic rattle coming from the driver's side sidepipe of my ERA FIA. I thought it was just the hanger, but after a thorough inspection, it's definitely coming from inside the sidepipe. Research on this forum has turned up a few threads suggesting (for other makes of Cobra replicas) that you can drill a hole and use a metal screw to hold things together inside the pipe to try to get rid of the rattle for cheap. Should I try that with these ERA sidepipes? I'm not sure what they look like inside, and am not sure about where the screw would go. Any help would be greatly appreciated before I head down to an exhaust/welding specialist to cut them open!

[spitfun@aol.com]

I did the exact same thing on one of my cars,just put a stainless screw in half the diameter of the pipe in length in the bottom and you should be fine. There really is no wrong way to do it as long as you hit the loose piece inside. Rich

[ACademic]

Looking at the side pipe from the back of the car, I would recommend drilling your hole in the 3:30-4:00 o'clock position. No one will see this unless they have their ear on the asphalt. I had CO2 sensor bungs in the same position (8-8:30 on the passenger side) for gathering very temporary O2 readings while tuning and no one ever mentioned them.

[CJ428CJ]

I had a rattle in my ERA stainless pipes for the longest time. I finally took them off to do some other work to the car and discovered that there was a loose nut laying in the bottom of the side pipe. I have no idea how it got in there. I removed the nut and no more rattles.

Personally I would be very hesitant to just blindly run a screw through my sidepipe hoping to catch the rattle point. Maybe you can use a bore scope to better evaluate where the rattle might be coming from and the best way to address it.

[kevins2]

I had a rattle in one of mine and it was a broken weld - the baffle is welded at both ends to the sidepipe. If that's what it is and, if it happens to be the rear weld, you can actually see the broken weld looking into the pipe. I sent mine back to Stainless Specialties and they replaced the center section of the pipe (welded my collector and tail piece to a new sidepipe baffle).

[Cobalt289]

Thanks all! Yes, I was hesitant about drilling a hole and just running a screw into the sidepipe with the hope of it actually working, but since I knew the alternative would take a lot more time and money, I got some self-tapping stainless steel screws and went to work. Because the car is so low to the ground, just getting a drill underneath the inside edge of the pipe was tricky, and I've never wanted access to a car lift any more than I did this morning. After several failed attempts which took a lot longer than I expected (including one that initially worked great until the baffle shook loose and the rattle came back with a vengeance on my test drive), I finally got the desired result - specifically, the screw caught solidly on the inner baffle and tightened everything up. No more rattle!

[jhv48]

Sometimes a good screwing is all you need.