Roof Rack wind noise...

R_Lefebvre

Expedition Leader
So, how much wind noise are we talking about for people with SD racks? Just curious.

I drove for the first time with my light bar. It's a piece of 2" square aluminum tubing with rounded corners and 4 FF500's mounted, and it's clamped to the stock rack rails. So far so good. There's a touch of wind noise. It's just a bit less than the tire noise, and is pretty much drowned out by my radio on a normal setting. Pretty happy with that.

I'm not sure if there's anything else I can do to improve it. There are a few open holes I'll try to close up.
 

sboada

Observer
I have had the Hannibal for about a year now on my 04 DII. A little increase in wind noise, but nothing makor. Does not impact cabin comfort or anything. Drove cross country with it, and it wasn't an issue. As far as MPG is concerned, I haven't noticed a huge decrease, maybe 1-2 MPG if I had to guess. For the amount of time I use it, it is worth it to me. Getting ready to put lights on it, and we'll see how that affects tind deflection/noise.
 

c johno

New member
I have an sd rack on my 95 disco don't notice noise or drop in mpg. If I take the back way to work I can get 17 mpg. The speed limit on the back roads are 40 mph.
 

fkphoto

Observer
hannibal rack

I have had the Hannibal for about a year now on my 04 DII. A little increase in wind noise, but nothing makor. Does not impact cabin comfort or anything. Drove cross country with it, and it wasn't an issue. As far as MPG is concerned, I haven't noticed a huge decrease, maybe 1-2 MPG if I had to guess. For the amount of time I use it, it is worth it to me. Getting ready to put lights on it, and we'll see how that affects tind deflection/noise.

i was actually thinking of the hannibal rack for myself. how's the strength and weight capacity of the rack?
thanks,
Fk
 

fkphoto

Observer
This is not Land Rover specific but I just recently designed and helped build a rack for my VW Double Cab Syncro. I drove around with it in bare steel to start with just to make sure things were good. When I first got to the freeway it was so loud that I thought it was not going to be useable and I was going to be out about $700 in steel. I just started taping up everything that I thought would cause noise. I used wide painters tape and in so doing found that welding a tab between the two bars in front kept from setting up harmonic vibration and then found that the two front corners were generating 90% of the wind noise. I have pieces of a rack fairing zip tied on there to keep the air from going down through those corners. I don't really notice any wind noise from the rack after that. This is of course considering this is not a quiet truck to start with it is big and boxy so there is plenty of noise from other places. You might give this a try for seeing if you can quiet your rack.

Craig

thanks for the info,
Fk
 

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