While trying to track down the noises mentioned in another post, I found an odd cylinder mounted just under the radiator on my 04 Lancer Sportback Ralliart. Curious, I grabbed it and gave it a jiggle to see if it might be adding to my rattle problem. To my suprise it gave a little and seemed to be springy. No I'm really interested and started to look for hoses or wires that might lead into the cylinder and found none!

The cylinder is mounted on either end and it seems that each end is hard mounted (for a lack of a better term). So any dampening is going on inside the tube. The tube is about7-8 inches long and 2-2 1/2 in. in diameter.

The placement so far forward reminded me of the mass damper placement on the Renault F1 cars that was banned this year.

So, is this a mass damper? If not, anyone have any idea what it is?

 

i think i know what it is...if theres 2 bolts on each side, its some kind of crash protection thing. if you take them off, theyre kinda heavy. they dont really do anything