I think its toast.....
 

Well here it goes. I was accelerating onto the freeway in 3rd gear last night. Nothing out of the ordinary happened. I did not over rev the motor or miss a shift! Boost hit 19psi as normal but when I went to shift into 4th I felt a vibration through my clutch pedal. It immediately reminded me of MS3guy22's post. I pulled over and shut the car off. Went to start it again and if fired right up. Car is in neutral and I press in the clutch. As soon as I begin to press it in I feel the vibration. When its all the way depressed the vibration is gone. I then got out and listened to the engine. I can here a clicking noise...definitely not a normal noise. It grows more audible at lower RPMs and less at higher. Any ideas? The car is currently up on jackstands right now. I have drained the oil and am about to take off the oil pan. I checked spark plugs there is nothing abnormal there. I can not find any holes in the block....yet. HELP.....so much for my dyno day today.

On a lighter not I lowered the car on H&Rs last night and threw a set of 17x8.5 Rpf1s wrapped in 235-45-17s......it looks mean as hell

damm that SUCKS! sorry to hear man. I hope its nothing..

Yeah I dont know...I need to talk to MS3guy22 and find out some specific details. Mine sounds like a similar situation to his. Its something though.

Just reading your description, sounds like trans or clutch? Seems like to me based on the fact that the vibes change with clutch travel and no load on the engine.

Is there any smoking?

That sucks man, keep us posted.

by your description i was thinking transmission
what has you thinking engine?

Thats the thing though it does change with idle....

bad throw out bearing? does it make a squeek when depressing the clutch

Nope

hey its a long shot but the way the ticking is described it sounds like the tensioner on teh timing chain. slack in that chain would make that noise i would think.
i dont know thats likely far off but anything seems worth a shot.

i guess that doesnt fit in much with the clutch feeling though...

Sounds like a clutch issue maybe a throw out bearing. Clutch noise would change with revs.

My vote is for a broken clutch disc or TO bearing. I think your engine is fine. Good luck .

Car looks sick with that wheel/tire combo !!!!

Tore off the oil pan and inspected the rods/pistons from the underside. No broken rods and it all seems to be intact. Checked spark plugs for any evidence of anything......not oil.....they werent running lean. I am baffled. I was half expecting to see a chunk of metal just fall in my face....nope didnt happen. I am just really worried based on what others have experienced. Any more suggestions?

Do you guys really think it could be the clutch? Maybe a chunk broke off under acceleration? Sounds unlikely because the noise it is making. Maybe it is the flywheels smaking the clutch pieces?

BTW no CEL.....what the heck.

good luck. hope you find out what the hell is wrong.

Sounds like the throwout bearing or the pressure plate "fingers" where the TO bearing contacts it.

I still say clutch disc. However, I do remember reading somewhere about a cracked flywheel on a MS3.

The only way to find out is to drop the tranny.

Yeah I am going to be researching that. I wonder how hard it would be to do. I have done Honda motors and trannys for years. Maybe this is more complicated.

Sounds like a bad throwout bearing to me.

im thinking throwout bearing as well

I'm thinking fly wheel shit the bed. Thats me though.

Well the car is back together and headed to the shop on Tuesday. I cant isolate the clicking noise. I did further inspect the rods and found no damage in that area. It is no where near loud enough to be something engine related unless it is a valve....highly doubtfful. Anyways I am looking at a Spec 3+ clutch to replace the stocker...even if it is just the flywheel.

if you had a catastrophic internal engine failure, you'd not be able to fire the engine up, unless it was something like a smacked valve or cracked ring, etc. the idle would be totally whacked though, or it would sound like it had a miss upon rev-up.

anyway, would anyone agree that it sounds like possibly a bent pressure plate finger? without re-reading it, TO bearing could be responsible as well, unless there is something i'm missing.

Something like this?

http://forums.focaljet.com/shift/574...te-finger.html

gnarly looking at that link...
good luck slo... you have my best wishes.
if it was that, then at least you get a new clutch :-)

LOL yeah I already thought of the positive side. I really wish I had the F2 balance delete kit today. I would have left that damn chunk of metal out. I am eyeing up the clutch kit. 750......ouch. I will wait to order it until the problem is 100% discovered.

ooo thats a hit man...
youll be stoked once its in though..
feel bad for this happening to you, especially after you were thinking of parting the thing out and selling it.
you seem like a fairly resourceful person though so i think you can handle a bump in the road...
you took the whole pan off???
was it messy?
sorry to go off topic but i was thinking about the balance shaft delete.

How many miles do you have on your ride? Are these clutches that fragile?

28,000 miles

It wsant too messy. You do need rags and cardboard on the ground to catch the drips. The delete kit would be a super easy install.

How fragile are these clutches??

SLO... thanks for the info..
you need an engine bay pic in your sig too though. seeing that L/A IC on every post was something i looked forward to...
nice pic none the less...

Don't forget to check the springs on the clutch (not the lever ones), see if any are broken or shifted out and/or sheared. Look at the center shaft opening where the splines line up for centering on the clutch (might be off center). Wished I had a pic to show you what I'm talking about. When you take down the tranny, look at the clutch on both sides.

right, you mean the springs that dampen the disk....very possible one of them could have dislodged, or broken. i've seen that a few times with performance disks. i can't recall any from stockers.

i dunno about the center shifting though, that would not be something that would just 'occur', is it? never seen that just happen....

I would say definitely trans related. I would say clutch. if it's more of a chattering noise I would point towards the dampening springs on the friction disc itself. If it was the throw-out bearing I would say a growling or rattling noise depending on the exact issue. I have seen more than a few throw-out bearings fall apart when I took them out on these cars now.

It wouldn't be engine related or valve train related since it goes away at higher rpm's not gets faster.

UPDATE: The shop called me and they are pulling the trans right now. They put the car on the lift and started it in neutral. They said they observed the clutch arm moving back and forth. He says there is about a 95% chance it is the pressure plate. Should know for sure by the end of the day.

i hope its whatever is cheapest for you bro take care good luck.

no. if he damaged his clutch, it was a fluke...even the most high performance, precision, custom disks and pressure plates fail, sometimes with no outside cause. nothing is totally impervious to the chance of failure, nothing.

IDRVSLO, can't wait for the news.

I cant wait either.....the suspense is killing me.

Forgot you are 3 hours behind some of us lol.

Any news?

FWIW, a ticking sound is normal from a DI motor.