Horrible noise from 01 under deceleration
 

Gents,

I recently acquired a 2001 SE 6 speed, torsen equipped car with a terrible ebay (im assuming) tubular manifold that puts the turbo in a bottom mount position. Fueling is handled by a voodoo box. I have a terrible sound on deceleration when the car gets warmed up. I tried aligning the ppf, no change was noticed. Changed diff fluid, no difference. Looked for heat shields that could be vibrating and found nothing. The noise sounds like a tire rubbing on a fender liner, but there are no fender liners.

A bit of background: the car sat built as is for 4 or 5 years, maybe 500 miles on the coilovers, clutch, turbo kit, etc. 2.5" exhaust that i can get to hit the frame if i rock it hard enough.

The noise does seem to disappear when the clutch is depressed.

According to the PO, the car has a fm clutch, unsure if the PO did a light flywheel. It definitely feels a bit stiffer than an OE clutch.

link to video of noise:
(noise can be heard at 13 seconds)

Any thoughts or direction on this? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I’m convinced that’s exhaust, put in some new Mazda comp mounts and report back. Or fix the exhaust. Or both.

Thanks Curly, I owe you a beer! Pretty sure that fixed it! The engine mounts feel pretty strong / stiff. So I isolated the exhaust with a bunch of coat hangers to keep it from touching anywhere. Voila! Now to fix it properly. (I believe it was where the exhaust was ever so slightly hitting the differential housing upon a forward weight transfer that was making all the racket) Will update with anymore findings.