Well I purchased my car about a year and a half ago and it has always had this weird vibration under hard acceleration. Maybe it's a good time to mention that my car is manual. When I bought the car it had old Michelin Primacy's that drove on some time. When under hard acceleration it vibrated slightly and I always believed it was the tires. Bought new Kumho's and most of the vibration went away. After many miles of putting up with that my axles went bad. I replaced those with some cheap not known brand axles and that's when all my troubles began. I had to unbolt most of the suspension and mess with the ball joints. So first time I drove it I felt a very noticeable vibration during acceleration (no matter of how much throttle was given, even the slightest touch of the pedal made the front end shake). I got pissed and bought some DriveShaft Shop axles to replace the stupid ones that I got. Put them on and the shaking still remained under the same circumstances. I know for a fact that my disks in the front are badly warped and will be replaced soon but the shaking got unbearable after the axle intervention. My tires are well balanced and about a year old, plus the car ran ok with them with the old axles. My ball joints on everything in the front is torn and leaky but like I said I didn't have any issues before I messed with the suspension to change the axles. The car shakes under any load between 2.3k and about 3k, in any gear except for fifth sometimes. I am pretty convinced that all the front ball joints are what is causing all my troubles but don't want to just go and change them if they are ok (my friend has a 97 SE and the front end is in the same shape as far as I can tell by just looking but he has no issues). Any ideas what it could be? Balljoints? Bad clutch/flywheel? Thanks in advance!

 

Any ideas?

 

Motor mounts and the washers within them.

 

matter of fact I'd give your front motor mount a good looking over. The clutch won't make your car shake while accelerating, you'd feel that going out. I

 

Ok, will do that tomorrow. Thanks! Front mount being the one next to the exhaust manifold/bottom middle of radiator right?

 

Heh, this is funny. My car vibrates at ~3000RPM as well! I kinda figured it was the motor mounts.

If youre going to replace the front I would replace the rear as well.

 

I would have to agree on the motor mounts. Plus I would imagine the design isn't far off than my 06 6spd. Could be mounts, bushings, and tie rod ends. As far as the brakes from what I've read and heard from other owners the brakes run hot and warp the rotors, which also means more frequent brake changes. I was told to buy the sloted rotors for the front, and it supposedly helps. I just can't see myself buying fancy rotors for the front and not for the back, maybe it's just my OCD, but I think it would look tacky. Oh and I was told to buy the OEM pads. I don't know for a fact if it will help or not, but seems to be cheaper for me than to get bigger rotors and pads.

 

I went through 12 axles from three different companies and they all vibrated on acceleration exactly like you describe.

Finally I got a set of raxles and the problem is completely gone.

I think there is some serious quality control problems with aftermarket axles. Be warned that raxles are not cheap. But they really are top notch.