[Sail Boat]

Welcome back to yet another thread about my front-end clunk-solving adventure! Slowly but surely, the knock/clunk/bangs have returned. It is driving me up a gosh darn wall, it makes me want to put this car in timeout.

The front end clunk has been discussed at great length, but I don't think this is a universal issue. The two main culprits are EDC valving (reprogrammable) and steering racks. Interestingly, despite these "fixes" the noise seems to reappear over time.

Check out below and let me know if you all find anything I'm missing - I'm about ready to just purchase all new suspension components and try from scratch.

The noise:
happens when one wheel suddenly changes in vertical direction, up or down, in relation to the other wheel. For instance driving over a crack in the road, manhole, small pothole, or even a bump.

What I've done:
1) Removed the EDC system entirely by installing KW V3 coilovers, ruling out the EDC problem. No noise for 500 miles or so, then returned.
2) Disconnected the steering rack tie rods, checked for play. None was found, ruling out the steering rack.
3) Tried shorter, OEM, and Longer end links. Each worked for a period of time but knocking returned.
4) Checked Thrust arm and LCA, both seem fine.
5) Checked to make sure the tophats are bolted down and shaft is torqued properly.

One thing I am trying again is disconnecting the front sway bar. I'll drive around for a while to see if it makes a difference. When I did this in the past, it seemed to solve the issue entirely... Of course after discovering this, I was 100% certain that the knocking was coming from the swaybar "walking" due to worn out bushings. This makes sense because it is the only suspension component tying together vertical motion on both wheels.

I also have a suspicion that it is the tophats. Realoem indicates that the tophats for EDC vs. Non-EDC cars are different, but I can't imagine the two parts are that much different. Could this be the problem?