Spacers Wheel well trimming and road noise.

[sampson]

Yesterday I installed a set of Spidertrax spacers and I’m very happy with the added look to the vehicle. I wound up having to do some minor wheel well trimming and then trimmed down the ends of the running boards for a more aggressive look. After going on my first test drive I see that I’ll need to have a caster adjustment made for clearance, and probably should have done this before I started cutting s***! I also noticed a pretty significant increase in road noise from my tires. Has anyone else experienced this?

I’m wondering if the tires sticking out further from the fender liner is allowing more noise to bounce up off the road? Or is the missing portion of fender liner the culprit? Maybe a combination of the two? Has anyone found a solution for this? I’m thinking about some fort of sound dampening material after I get the caster issue corrected.

 

[CGIB]

People are going to probably want to know your suspension setup and tire size to better answer your question.

 

[Arailt]

Are you saying the same tires didn't make as much noise prior to installing the wheel spacers?

I can't imagine trimming the wheel well liners or running boards would cause more tire noise to enter the cabin. Maybe the wind is catching on the trimmed plastic and causing the noise? Maybe because they're sticking out further like you said. Seems odd. Maybe you just didn't notice it before.

 

[sampson]

Are you saying the same tires didn't make as much noise prior to installing the wheel spacers?

I can't imagine trimming the wheel well liners or running boards would cause more tire noise to enter the cabin. Maybe the wind is catching on the trimmed plastic and causing the noise? Maybe because they're sticking out further like you said. Seems odd. Maybe you just didn't notice it before.

It seemed to quiet down a little this afternoon although it’s still noticeably louder. I don’t know a lot about acoustics but when finishing my basement and insulating the room for sound they went as far as to use a special caulk in all of the outlets. Sound-waves have funny ways of finding there way through cracks and holes. My thought was something along those lines in the bottom portion of the fender liner where there’s now a gap. Also with a portion of the tire now outside the wheel well not blocked by any sound dampening material. I have a couple ideas for this and plan on experimenting a little bit next week.

 

[sampson]

People are going to probably want to know your suspension setup and tire size to better answer your question.

I have an Eibach pro lift set at 2.5” from and 2.2” rear along with Blackhawk UCAs and General Grabber AT tires on TRD wheels.

 

[jiggletits]

Why put spacers on? The TRD wheels sit nicely already.