Vibration at 70+ mph

[goshow]

Last week I fitted brand new pagid discs and pads to my 2010 FL vRS CR, also fitted Brembo 4 pot calipers.

 

Everything went swimmingly and there were no issues at all during fitting. I've fitted dozens of discs and pads in the pads so am 100% confident I've done them right. The discs aren't binding with the calipers at all and nothing is rubbing or causing unrequired friction.

 

Due to the car being on Neptune alloys the calipers don't fit behind the wheels so I fitted 10mm spacers, this gave the required clearance.

 

Today was the first time I've had chance to give it some berries after fitting and bedding in the pads etc. The brakes are fantastic and there are no pulses through the brake pedal under light, moderate or heavy braking.

 

However, I noticed that there was a slight vibration at around 60mph that got a but heavier at 70mph. When under heavy acceleration in 4th from 60+ the vibration is really noticeable but if you lift the throttle it almost disappears. At around 80mph in 4th the vibration is really bad. Bad enough that I didn't dare push through it to see if it would clear.

 

I've checked all the wheel weights and haven't lost any. The tyres are only a month or so old and there weren't any vibrations before. The wheels are torqued up correctly and none of the bolts are loose.

 

Suggestions on a postcard please!!! :S

[rlp]

were the spacers hub centric ?

[mannyo]

I was going to suggest the spacers as well, possibly one or both on the front are not fitted correctly/lose or some dirt causing them to run out of true.

[goshow]

were the spacers hub centric ?

No, they're just cheap universal type ones.

It had crossed my mind but I didn't want to suggest it as I wanted to see other's views.

[rob_e]

Get the balance re-checked. Any imbalance will feel worse with spacers.

[vonbeck]

Could be wheels need rebalancing but I would also consider saving up for hub centric spacers too

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[rlp]

Someone on this site had the same problem, they resolved the wheels fitting by cutting/ grinding the caliper, i understand that they didn't have to take a lot of metal off, I'm not endorsing it but seemed to work for them. I would run the old wheels until you can get h/c spacers and you might have to go for 12 or15mm if i remember correctly 10mm h/c are difficult to find.

[rob_e]

The guys who ground the caliper were running S3 front brakes not brembos. You won't fit brembos behind Neptunes without a spacer. H&R do a 10mm hubcentric spacer that fits the vrs:

H&R 10mm hubcentric spacer by lotus-gt, on Flickr

[goshow]

All sorted now thanks chaps, is was indeed the crap cheap spacers.

 

Fitted some hubcentric ones now and they feel true and straight.

 

However, the spigot on the FL vRS 170 CR is longer than the internal depth of the spacer so I had to cut / machine the spigot down by 5mm. This hasn't affected anything on the car and is easy enough to do with a dremmel.