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Had her up on the lift twice since the last I posted. I managed to move the protective sheet away from the headers, and re-re-tightened all the suspension bolts. And the noise persists.
I'm giving up on diagnosing this myself and taking this back to the installer to figure out, next Tuesday.
Took it back to the installers, and according to them, it's the RR Racing Engine Mount that's making that noise since they are polyurethane bushing. They also thought that because of the engine mount design, metal on top of polyurethane, that's what causing the noise. I argued that if the engine mount, then shouldn't the noise be coming from both sides, instead of only on the driver side, when braking? The best explanation I got was the fact that the mount was experience load because the torque converter would still be in-motion, and thus creating the noise only on the driver side. The installers were also confident that they tightened all the bolts to spec.
I then emailed Simon at RR Racing to see if other customers have experienced the same noise, and according to RR Racing, the mount should NOT cause any noise when installed properly and there was something wrong with the installation (e.g. maybe bolts were not tightened enough).
I'm not sure if I'm viewing this from an objective view anymore, but I think I have 3 options:
1. Go to a different shop and have double confirm that the bolts to the engine mount are indeed tightened to spec.
2. Acknowledge that there may be a defect on the engine mount and work with RR Racing.
3. Re-Install the stock mount.
I would just return that one you have and get a new one and also have another shop install it. Seems like your in the middle so why not do both. Or if you really don't care anymore get the oem mount and be done with it
Turns out the noise was because of the upstream o2 wiring harness bracket/holder on the front side. The installer did not originally remove this. The popping sound is caused by this bracket rubbing against the PPE header. Once removed, I no longer hear the noise.
I looked through the instructions that PPE supplied, and it did not say to remove this bracket. Moral of the story, when doing PPE install, do REMOVE this bracket or else it may cause noise when braking.
The highlighted part is what contacting on the headers. Bracket itself.