While im driving the car makes a whining noise. The best way to describe it is that it sounds like a very muffled air raid siren. Also the car shifts very hard into 2nd, sometimes chirping the tires. I knew when I bought the car that I would need to fix up the trans and/or the rear. I was wondering if anyone had any ideas. To my knowledge the car had 3.73's and a shift kit installed some years ago. Could those be bad?

 

Could be those gears...but it could be your converter or pump going up too...I blew mine up the other day and it made a really loud whining sound afterwards..probaly the pump for mine but not sure...
Check your tranny fluid..if it is grayish then you have clutch wear going on which your living on borrowed time.
Is the converter stock..they tend to go up..
get it looked at asap at a tranny shop they have special tools that they can listen to the tranny to see if its making noise ect..
better to be safe than sorry...if that converter is going up..it will put metal into the tranny and take everything with it...I had a whining sound several years ago..found out it was the converter..not before it took the whole tranny with it..
Does it make the sound in reverse/or when you first put in in drive and not really moving fast?
Gears don't start making to much noise untill you really get going...a converter /pump make noise even in reverse/or idling in drive...

 

It starts at about 25mph, and gets louder when I accelerate.

 

Well that could be your gears then...if its converter/pump..it usually starts up right as you put it in drive...
You said the tranny shifts hard into second so the actuall tranny itself sounds good...if the pump is bad your shifts are not as clean do to the pump failing to move the fluid...
So I'd lean towards the gears ..which is a much cheaper fix.

 

Where do you live in north cal?

Help may be around the corner!

 

I live 1/2 way between San Francisco and Sac in Antioch.

UPDATE: I was trying to figure out when exactly the noise starts happening, this is what I noticed. It doesnt start until about 30mph. It only makes noise when I accelerate, I guess because of the load. If I am going 65 and coast, the noise stops. Any ideas on what this can rule out?

 

I too am experiencing this whine noise and it sounds like it's coming from the back end somewhere. When I am driving along going say 45 mph or so, if i get completely off the throttle, I hear no noise. If i give a SMALL amount of throttle, it occurs again, but if i give it medium to 100% throttle, I hear nothing.

 

Where's it coming from, the front or the back?

 

It sounds like its coming from the rear, but noises are hard to track from inside the car.

 

I had the same problem. I found out though that I had a bad rear pinion seal that needed to be replaced. At first I took my rear end apart to check for a bad differential , bearings and pinion gears. Come to find out I had low gear oil. So I filled it up and it went away for a while and then came back. That is when I noticed that it was leaking through the pinon seal.

 

my white trans am does the same exact thing.Im gonna change the gear oil tomorrow.Hopefully that helps.Is synthetic gear oil bad if I use it

 

If your gears are aftermarket then it could be one of two problems you could just be hearing a little bit of the whinning aftermarket gaears are know to make or the rear is not set up correctly.

 

It definately sounds like rear end. The gears are worn on the accel side thats why it doesnt make the noise when slowing down but going light on the throttle again meshes the worn sides of the gears in turn making the noise again.

 

Same problem here, the noise starts at about 30 miles an hr. I thought it was the tranny, till I had it on a lift. Turns out to be the rear end. Looking for a used one now.