Lately, my engine has been making this awful noise at high RPM. Mostly happens when the weather is cool and the A/C is off. Around 5K is when it starts. Sound like a rattle of some sort coming somewhere past the firewall, on the passenger side.

I changed my oil yesterday and thought I had gotten rid of it but now it's back again. I'm thinking it's something in the A/C system, or a pulley or something. Whatever it is, it's annoying me to death. I want to take it back to the dealer but I need to put my stock intake back on. I know exactly what they will say if I don't take it off.

Anyone have any suggestions to what this is? I have the 1.6 ZM-DE w/ auto tranny if it helps any.

 

clint... i'm not sure whether this is it or not. but i had a damn annoying rattle after i put in the strut tower bar a while back.. didnt happen at first, but happened after a while. it was actually my throttle cable bouncing off the bar right there at the left side of the engine bay. i zip tied it down to something so it wasnt hitting it. other than that, maybe you could have someone sit in the car and rev it a little and see if you can find where it's coming from.

 

I had that same rattle you are talking about, and I fixed it the same way. This rattle is not that, though. It's engine-speed related and only seems to happen when I'm in drive (automatic). I tried popping the hood and revving the car using the throttle control thingy but it doesn't make any noise in park.

 

oh yeah.. the other rattle i forgot to mention that i had to fix myself.. was the injen rattle! sometimes, the way the injen mounts to the vibra-mount... it'll set the intake pipe pretty close to the edge of the hole it goes into. Mine was rattling like mad for a while, until I put something there to make it not hit the edge. Take a look at your pipe, and see if it's getting scuffed where it's close to the hole. That might be it too. I'm just giving some suggestions on what it could be. If it's not any of that stuff.. maybe take it in to the dealership and have it looked at. I think most dealerships do free estimates and all **** to see what's wrong.

 

Yeah, I had that intake problem also. Heh. It's all fixed now though.

I'm going to go back to the dealer, but I know they are going to say something about my intake. The factory warranty is expired but I still have 1.5 years left on my extended warranty. Oh well...

 

they *can't* say anything about your intake. when i had a valve cover bolt snap off... i took it to the dealer and the guy who took my car from me tried to say some **** about "the master tech might look at this, and say it voids your warranty." i told him, if the master tech decides to say something about it... i'll leave my cell phone number with him and he can have him call me, and i'll tell him personally to kiss my ***, because it has nothing to do with my problem. only call i got, was them sayin "your car is done, come pick it up." :P

 

Well, I have an appointment scheduled for Monday. We'll see what happens. I doubt they will fix anything. It will be "cannot reproduce problem" or "it's the intake".

Here's a sound clip of the rattle, very hard to hear but its at towards the end before it shifts to 2nd gear.

http://www.morrownet.net/negatize/media/injen2.wav

 

OK, I'm pissed..

I got a call from the dealer saying that the rattle coming from the engine bay is from the OEM strut tower bar I put on. OH MY ******* GOD. THEN WHY DOESNT IT MAKE ANY NOISE WHEN THE A/C IS ON?!?!?! I'm totally pissed right now. I'm waiting for their shuttle to pick me up so I can give them a piece of my advice.