legacycentral bbs

So the thing is that I deviced to put this EJ20 in my rally car cause my orginal EJ25 conversion didn't seem tuned properly and it also clacked like crazy. It clacked so bad that it took the pleasure out of driving. In fact it clacked so bad that I actually went to the dealer to have them check it out - first time ever to the dealer for help. Last time too. Anyway the noise was a clack proportional to RPM and not a function of any loading. It did, however, get much quieter when warm. So the dealer says it's a shim over bucket valve adjustment issue. The valve adjustment was $$$... they said 200, they billed 750, I paid 400. Sigh. Anyway, I put the engine in and the noise was STILL exactly the same.

Skip to the EJ20..........

SO then I found this EJ20 at a local wrecker. 60K miles and not run for about three years. It's now in and running and it makes the same GD racket as my other motor!!!!!!!!!!! And this time it doesn't get any better with engine temperature.

I sounds to me (I hope) like it's one thing ticking (clacking) per cam rotation. It's distinctly on the passenger side head. And it's freakin loud! Really loud. It's basically the dominant sound when the car is running. Like someone is hitting the head pretty hard with a hammer.

Could this be a stuck HLA? The old oil was pretty goopy when I removed it. Can HLAs be this loud? I haven't driven the car yet but it has idled for probably more than an hour. Plus I've reved it up a bunch... then "drove" on the stand with a braking load to get some boost action - which happend to blow the intercooler right off in a violent fury of wooshing sounds.

So, any ideas?

HLA can get really noisy, i've seen people selling their car for cheap because they tough the engine was f* up.

I had HLA clacking and rod knocking, i can tell you that the Hyd lifter made more noise than the rod knocking. My friend PRT who races ej22t in rallies said that a can of Mr.lube and such usually cures the problem. He was surprised has much as i was.

that almost sounds like to much of a coincendence to be a lifter. I mean, it could be, but you sure it's not maybe something in your clutch? Maybe the flywheel is hitting something or the clutch touching the bellhousing or something. For the noise to be the same on the same side for two different motors is just to much chance to belive. Might as well play the lottery while you're at it, you're hot for chance.

no, it's not the clutch or anyhing else......

You'd be surprised how much noise those things can make. When I swapped my NA motor couple weeks back and fired it up the first time it made a hell of a racket. My dad was just kinda quiet and 'that doesn't right'. I reassured him that it was probably HLA and that it's a fairly common occurence. I went out the next day, remove the valve covers and just push hard on the the rocker arms overtop of the valves. If it goes in, it's bad. I had two that I had to replace, it's a piece of cake, really. I had it all put back and about ready to run again when dad got home, fired it up and it sounded much much better. Dad actually seemed to feel that this swap was worth it, my old motor sounded bad and it wasn't HLA...

What's the frequency of the noise, is it fast, super fast, etc? If two made as much noise as mine was making I can imagine that something like 8 bad ones *shudder* would be horrendous.

On the Ej25, it is most likely rod knock, and thus why the dealer's head work did nothing for it.

It could also be the problem on the Ej20. Being phase I, they were known to have rod knock as the bearings got tired.

If, it is an HLA, you can remove them and manually bleed and test them. Even with the engine in the car, it isn't too hard. The hard part is finding a replacement if you have a bad one.

But on an engine that has been sitting, the HLA's almost always clack at first. It takes a while for them to pump back up, even if they are good. All the engines I have built recently have had this problem, but they went away within 20 minutes. Take it out for a drive and see if it helps. If you have a bad bearing, you probably aren't going to make that any worse with 10-15 miles of driving...

So the latest is that the noise gets worse as the engine heats up! I started it this morning and it was pretty ok. Then, after four or five mins the noise came creeping back!! grrrrrr.

It's weird. On other engines that I have spun rod bearings the noise depends on the loading. Load it up and it sounds ok. Rev it freely and knock a knock knock. My 2.5 engine only has about 6K miles on it from new - so it can't be tired. I overheated it, planned the head, repaced the gasket and reassembled it and clack clack clack. It didn't clack after the overheating before I got my hands on it. I'm cursed. Also on the 2.5 I can't tell where the noise is coming from. On the E20 I can totally tell that it's coming from the passenger head.

I also have driven the PISS out of the 2.5 for 5000miles with the knock. No better. No worse.

I'm going to seafoam the EJ20.

matt,

know where I can get a v1 or v2 or V2-RA ECU?

know where I can get an STI EJ20 with appropriate turbo.

gotta plan for the future........

-Andy

Talk to Supermoose at NASIOC. He's easily found in the conversions forum...

Well the noise pretty much went away after an hour of idling. And so did the coolant..... uh oh. Let's hope it didn't go out the exhaust!