Alright guys....well for the past couple of months, when my car is idling from 600-1200 RPM's, the nastiest rattling noice comes from the engine bay. The only way I can describe it is like a hundred slinkies being dragged across something. Now lately, it's gotten much worse, as has my idle problem. (I'm thinking they're related) I'm idling around 500, and it almost sputters just before going back up to 700 then 500, etc. I have to keep my foot on the break and rev it at stoplights, it sux! I decided to jack up my car, and visually search for it. I couldn't see anything, but the sound seemed to be coming from the very bottom of the engine near the Cam(?)..I'm a newbie so I'm not exactly sure what the bottom pulley is, but I'm pretty sure it's the cam. It sounds like it's coming from that, and my car has lost tremendous power since this problem got worse.

Now I read that it could be the cat....? I'm not even too sure what it looks like :-/ but I'm assuming it's the pipe in which I installed my O2 sensor. I knocked on it, but couldn't really hear any rattling.

Does anyone have any idea's? Thanks a lot

 

btw, it sounds almost exactly like gravel being rolled around in a metal pan...

 

Sounds like a cracked/broken flywheel. They usually crack in a circle right around the bolt holes. I could not see where mine was cracked untill I had the tranny out.

 

My car has a rattle at 750-1000, its the fuel lines though.

 

Time to stop driving the car if you're noticing power loss. Could be a loose oil pump pickup which is starving your engine of oil, what's your oil pressure?
Could be the cat, I hope it's that for your sake.

 

I just read his post all the way.

I would check the cat first. Its the object near the passenger door on the bottom of the car. Its a big bulge in the exhaust (6-8" wide) Hit on that firmly and see if it makes noise.

If not...uh oh.

 

sounds like possibly a problem with the bottom end. Maybe the bearings have all wiped out and what your hearing is rod knock. This would also explain the loss in power since the ecm may interprite it as detonation even though its not.

 

Could be a rattling heat shield on the manifolds. But I bet it's something worse, like rod knock as stated above. It hard to diagnose sounds when you cant actually hear them.....

 

Thanks a lot guys for your replies....

Where I live, we don't even need emissions....so I may as well just remove the cat, right? Anyone got a site or something with instructions? I'd really appreciate it.

Monday I'm going to see if I can borrow my friends digital video camera w/ audio and post a small vid of under the car w/ the noice. Hopefully you guys will be able to notice it, seeing as how smart you guys are Thanks again

 

It sound like this?

https://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/sho...hreadid=208445

 

o lordddddd no lol...thanks a lot for the idea though, ill post that vid on monday

 

Could be the Air pump has seized up, and now will make a noise like that.

 

surprisingly, I've never seen a good, thorough tech article on how to remove emissions (smog, AIR) with pictures....I've been wanting to remove all this crap because I don't need to keep it in....so can anyone help me out? Thanks

 

I think there is one on the main site. www.thirdgen.org

Basically you just rip it off and plug the holes where the AIR injection goes into the manifolds. Then get a 967K6 belt.

 

could anyone PLEASE get me a picture of all the junk after it's taken out of the car? (AIR, smog) that'd help soooo much. Thanks guys!