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Noisy engine while idling

Hi all,

I'm the owner of a 1994 Chevrolet Cavalier with a 2.2l 4 cyl engine,

130k miles. For a couple of weeks now I have noticed a weird sound coming from my engine compartment while idling. The best way that I can describe it is as sort of a mechanical "kakakakakakak..." sound, a bit similar to how it would sound if it were low on oil (which it seems to consume somewhat heavily now). When I rev the engine past what I'd guess to be around 1800-2000rpm (I don't have a tach) the sound seems to go away, and the vehicle is still perfectly drivable, with no noteable vibration or stuttering. I've been on track with regular oil changes, and all other maintainence is up to date. Upgrading to a higher grade of gas (87 to 89 octane) does seems to help to a certain degree, but the sound does remain..

Anyone ever encounter anything like this? My instinct would be pushrods or lifters, but like I said performance doesn't seem to be adversely affected to a degree that would lend me to believe it's something this severe...

Reply to
nipracw
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could be noisy fuel injectors. My wife's Beretta has them, sounds almost like noisy lifters. You could do the screwdriver to the ear trick to isolate the noise...

Other questions to help diagnosis: Does engine temperature change it? Does it get better/worse as the car warms up?

Ray

Reply to
news

The temperature, from as best I can tell, seems to have absolutely no affect on the noise. I'll start her up cold, let her idle until it reaches operating temperature, the chattering doesn't go away. I then drive a solid hour to work, all highway, and when I get there the same sound continues. Hot days, cold days, same thing.

The only things that seems to effect the chatter are the grade of gas, and revving the engine (when I do this the sound seems to pick up in frequency, until I hit somewhere in the 1800-2000 rpm range, at which point it all but goes away).

I think I'm going to do the screwdriver to ear trick when I go home, and perhaps try pulling one plug wire at a time to see if I can isolate the sound to a cylinder. I was thinking that it could possibly be bad injectors, or maybe even an exhaust manifold leak, but if either one of those are the culprit then the oil consumption has me stumped...

Reply to
nipracw

This engine uses a timing chain tensioner. A worn one can make a similiar noise.

Reply to
Edward Strauss

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