Hey Everyone,

So this is my first post on the forums after reading through lots of pages over the last few months, i have a couple of questions i cant seem to find answers to. I was wondering if anyone might be able to give me some advice.

For starters, i currently am driving a 2008 Tucson Se V6 AWD. Nothing fancy fully stock and getting about 19mpg on average so it so it works for my current needs while i am working on my project car.

Here are the questions,

1. Anytime i hit a puddle it appears the engine bay is getting filled with water, squealing, loose power steering, etc... I don't see any damage to the splash guard but it obviously isn't doing what it is supposed to.(atleast i assume that's the case) Is there any way to prevent this?

2. I know the AWD is suppose to have a "sportier" used very loosely, suspension, however it appears to be extremely stiff, you can feel hitting a pebble in the road, is there any way to soften the suspension, i cant seem to find anything aftermarket wise other than a set of coilovers that's over 1k and i don't want to spend that on this thing.

3. Aside from the stiff suspension there is also a ridiculous amount of road noise, i am plotting out upgrading all of the internal electronics as the factory system just isn't that good, but at the time of me writing this the road noise is so bad you basically have to keep the radio cranked to even hear it over the noise. I was thinking of doing some spray in sound absorption in the wheel wells and possibly using some other type in the panels, but i am curious if anyone has had success in this area?

4. The last question is in performance, i know that the Tiburon, also had the Delta v6 in it and there were all kinds of performance upgrades for it. Has anyone had any luck with transplanting these over into the Tucson platform? I.E. air intake, or possibly modifying headers/exhaust to fit on the Tucson chassis?

I know this one is kind of long but i look forward to hearing any advice you guys might have.

 

Yes, stop driving through deep puddles. No car keeps out all the water from the engine compartment but some let in more than others. I have a 2006 Tucson and it does it as well sometimes.

No, it does not.
Nope.

Road noise come from what is touching the road: tires. If you have lots of road noise, the tires are at fault. You need different tires. Some tires are just louder than others.

While both are Delta engines, the intake and exhaust are totally different. The Tucson is a CUV, not a Tiburon sports car. You're not going to gain much performance for the money spent.

 

Thank you for all of this feedback, i kind of figured that would be the case on the engine and suspension. Just figured it couldn't hurt to ask since i have experience with other cars that can have things interchangeable cross platforms. As far as the tires go it is still the original factory tires that are on it, do you have any recommendations on a brand to look at for replacements.

When it comes to the puddle's i am not talking about anything deep or going off road, i mean like less than 2 inchs of water on the street puddles, i could completely understand if it was deeper or i was purposely hitting deep holes but it happens just pulling out of my drive way when its raining.

The main goal of these questions is to try and make the Tucson a little bit more comfortable to be in. I have a terminally ill wife and the suspension and road noise tend to make her pretty sick on the way to and from chemo.