Roof Rack Wind Noise Help !

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Guy Harding

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Hey guys,
So I bought my LR4 last year and it came with a Rover Racks on the roof and wind faring, it also has four spotlights across the front but took them off in an attempt to reduce some wind noise. After taping off various areas and trying multiple things I cannot reduce the noise from the front of the rack, sometimes I can hear it at 25/30 miles an hour but a high speed on the freeway it’s hard to make phone calls its so loud.
Does anybody have any idea what I can do to reduce this noise, do I need to get rid of the gap at the bottom between the faring and the rack (pic 2)? or is it the wind coming up the windshield and hitting the underside of the four spotlight mounts that stick out? The spotlight mounts are not stock were custom-made and fitted to the rack.

Traction boards were added recently and dont seem to make any wind noise.

Its killing me, please help !

Guy
 

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mm3846

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that thing is huge.

best thing to mitigate the noise is remove it. it'll be close to impossible to quiet a rack down that wasn't designed from the start to be a quiet rack.
 

Stuart Barnes

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that thing is huge.

best thing to mitigate the noise is remove it. it'll be close to impossible to quiet a rack down that wasn't designed from the start to be a quiet rack.

Yep. Start with this, then if you still get wind noise look at the a pillar’s and front cowl to really dial it in.
 

greiswig

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I fabricated a faring for my Rhino rack out of lexan that works great. Big difference in design, though: mine extends all the way down to the skin, and I have an edge protector of some weatherstripping there. So it's tight against the actual roof.

I don't think that design is anywhere near close enough to the roof to do a lot of good mitigating the airflow you're hearing.
 

Guy Harding

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that thing is huge.

best thing to mitigate the noise is remove it. it'll be close to impossible to quiet a rack down that wasn't designed from the start to be a quiet rack.
Stuart do you mean remove the whole rack or the fearing ?
 

Guy Harding

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I fabricated a faring for my Rhino rack out of lexan that works great. Big difference in design, though: mine extends all the way down to the skin, and I have an edge protector of some weatherstripping there. So it's tight against the actual roof.

I don't think that design is anywhere near close enough to the roof to do a lot of good mitigating the airflow you're hearing.
Is the key to reducing wind noise getting the fearing close to the roof ?
 

greiswig

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Is the key to reducing wind noise getting the fearing close to the roof ?
In my opinion, yes. Otherwise you're just changing the nature of the turbulence under the roof rack, rather than directing it over.

Here's a potentially easy experiment for you to try: get some gaffer tape (doesn't leave adhesive residue) and extend your current fairing down to the skin using that. See if that does what you want. If so, you might be able to fabricate something more permanent.
 

Stuart Barnes

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Stuart do you mean remove the whole rack or the fearing ?
Extend the faring all the way to the roofline as suggested. If that doesn’t work remove the rack when you don’t really need it and go from there.

As others have mentioned, if a rack hasn’t been designed with regards to wind noise then it’s an uphill battle.
 

Guy Harding

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Extend the faring all the way to the roofline as suggested. If that doesn’t work remove the rack when you don’t really need it and go from there.

As others have mentioned, if a rack hasn’t been designed with regards to wind noise then it’s an uphill battle.
Ok will give that a shot and report back !
 

jlglr4

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Those tabs sticking out front (attachment for the former light rail) might be causing some problems. I can imagine those things catching the wind and vibrating like a tuning fork. You might try shielding them somehow - maybe somehow moving the existing air dam or using a new one that‘s a bit longer so it goes in front of the tabs.
 

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