How to diagnose a bad strut?

[zero2sixd]

I've been chasing a noise which sounds an awful lot like a loose fastener somewhere in the front passenger-side suspension of my car. It happens over rough pavement, but only small irregularities, larger bumps don't cause any sound. It's been getting steadily worse over time and it's not insulated at all from my ears since I use the MM upper strut mounts with the metal spherical bearing. To this point I haven't had any issues with NVH, even with these mounts. There is realistically only about 4K miles on these struts, but much of it under pretty harsh conditions (autocross/track events). The only highway miles are to/from events. The front suspension is MM upper strut mounts, FRPP springs, Tokico D-Spec struts, Steeda front sway bar, and Mr. Strano's sway bar end links. At one point I had: - Double checked the torque of all fasteners involved. (Upper strut mounts, strut to spindle bolts, sway bar end links, sway bar chassis brackets, lower ball joint pinch bolt, etc.) - Swapped the sway bar end links for the OE end links (better NVH isolation) - Done the ball joint test from the FSM - Checked for play in the wheel bearing - Checked for interference of the spring to the strut tower And still the noise persisted. But, I finally found a test that replicates the sound. With the car sitting on the ground, if I grab the top of the wheel and "monkey" it real hard, I can replicate the sound. It's the same if I remove the wheel, raise the lower control arm, grab the top of the strut near the spring perch and monkey it. With the lower control arm in full droop, it doesn't make the noise. I don't see any evidence of fluid leaking from the strut and the driver-side strut does not make this sound. I haven't yet removed the strut assembly, but even when I do, I'm not sure exactly what I'm looking for. My theory is that something is breaking down inside the strut and it is starting to fail but I don't have a lot of outward indication of this other than the monkey test. Anybody know what Tokico is going to want to hear when I call them on the phone and ask them to warranty the strut?

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[6-Speed]

I installed the MM camber plates on my GT500 with Ford Racing lowering springs and seem to have a noise in the front suspension similar to what you describe. Sounds like a light dull thump when I get going at low speeds and over speed bumps, but I never hear it while driving at speed even over rough/irregular surfaces. I believe it's on the passenger's side. I'm thinking I may not have completely removed the rubber band that's used to keep all the camber plate parts together prior to installation.

Even though I installed lowering springs, I used MM's standard spacer configuration and not the one for recovering bump travel.

Let me know what you find - if anything.