OK, so a couple of weeks ago, I opened the motor back up in an attempt to degree my VT stage IIs. This was with the motor in the car, which proved to be impossible, but we won't go there right now. Everything was fine before attempting this. I could only get an accurate reading with the dial indicator on the passenger side and found that initially it was advanced. Through the process of grinding the keywayon the stock gears and reinstalling several times, I managed to go the other way and retard them, although just eyeballing #1 and #6, they seemed to be more in sync with each other. I figured, what the hell, I'm tired of dealing with it, and I will just try to pull the motor during winter break when I can easily make other arrangements to have a ride to work without having to worry about school.

Fired it up, car sounded 100% better. The cams were hitting harder (thumping loudly) like what I envisioned they should, which made sense, considering they were more in time with each other now. However, once I started driving, the entire car shakes severely, more than just the added vibrations from the cams. It only seems to do it from about 1200 rpms to 2500 rpms or so and goes away above that. I hear no additional funny noises coming from the motor. The gears in the tranny are making all kinds of racket now, almost like a grind while cruising and at closed throttle. The vibrations in 5th make impossible to use 5ht gear unless I'm going 80 on the freeway where I have the rpms high enough to get out of the range.

I have since pulled the tranny and inspected the flywheel, PP, and clutch and saw no negative signs. There was some slight play in the input shaft, but nothing a thought would cause this. Nothing looked out of sorts with the driveshaft. No weights missing or anything that I could tell.

I am lost right now. The issues I am going over are whether or not the vibrations originate at the motor or the tranny. When they occur, the vibrations will go away when I press the clutch pedal down, which is why I was leaning toward the tranny, although I don't have an explanation.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Scott

 

since the vibrations occur at a specific RPM range and not a specific speed you can assume it's something from the clutch forward. Perhaps a software timing change in that RPM window would be appropriate.

 

I know this seems stupid but check all the plugs to your fuel injectors... make sure they are plugged in. The same type of vibration happend to me. The stupid shop didn't put one of my injector plugs back on.

 

All injectors are plugged in....

Scott

 

Well, the vibrations that shake every panel in the car to the point it seems as if the car will fall apart occur only in that range, with 5th gear feeling like riding on a jackhammer, literally. Then, when the severe vibrations occur, in gear under acceleration, and I press the clutch pedal down, they go away.

I did however have a chance to look over a few more things today, and the engine vibrations appear to be there all the time. At idle, I noticed the belt, where it runs between the alternator pulley and power steering pump, flapping around pretty violently. There is tension, and the tensioner tab is like right in the middle where you would judge whether or not the belt was out of adjustment.

I have no wobble in the damper at all. It appears that there is some slight wobble in the water pump pulley, or at least I can see the belt moving slightly back and forth (front to back). I pulled the belt and grabbed the pulley and there was some slight movement of the water pump nose, but nothing I thought would create such a severe vibration.

Considering all the excess gear noise, and now the fact that the vibrations are there all the time, just not as noticable, can we lean more toward tranny issues? Maybe bent input shaft, since it is engaged with the motor all the time? Then, when in gear, the vibrations created here get transfered to the gears since everything would be engaged?

The only thing motor wise that I can think of that could be wrong would be bent valves, but 1, I would think that it would only get worse at higher rpms, and 2, I was able to turn the motor by hand before buttoning it up and heard no indication that the chains jumped a tooth or anything. I hear no abnormal noise coming from the motor either. I had a couple of instances through the installation process where I tried to install the cam and the valves hit, but I never forced anything and I made sure everything turned freely before buttoning it up. I can't believe the little bit of contact would have hurt anything.

I have not specifically checked the motor mounts yet, but plan to this weekend, but I have some Energy Suspension Polys that have only been on for maybe 10K at best so I don't suspect anything wrong there.

Is it safe to run the car on without the driveshaft connected? I was just concerned about any balance issues, but was thinking that if I tried that and it was still there, that would at least eliminate the DS.

Scott

 

Well, I got a hold of a compression tester today and checked that out. All cylinders came up good, with each cylinder showing 210-215 psi. The engine wasn't hot as the directions said it should be, as I was replacing a valve cover gasket and some other things and already had the spark plugs out and just didn't feel like spending more time than I already had. Bottom line is, the car had been sitting since about 7:00 this morning and the test was run at about 1:00 pm. What I figured was that the numbers themselves weren't that important but that the numbers were close to each other. I am not sure what the numbers should be with my setup, but I know that the compression should be higher than stock with the pi upgrade and such.

But anyway, enough rambling...

All cylinders were equal, which would indicate to me that I do not have a blown head gasket and one cam is not severely mistimed (degreed) relative to the other. I am not sure what to make of this now. What inside the motor could create such vibrations that would not have effect on compression? Wouldn't a bent valve or even a bent rod have an effect on compression?

I am going to pull the tranny again hopefully next weekend and put my stock flywheel, clutch, and PP back on and see if anything happens. I thought that while I was doing this, I might just put the bellhousing back on so that I can put the starter on and run the motor to see if the motor vibrates any less, which might indicate a possible bent input shaft or something.

Anyway, any further input would be greatly appreciate, given this new information from today.

Scott

 

Well after pulling the tranny this weekend, everything with the flywheel, clutch, and PP seems fine. I pulled the bellhousing just to inspect things and didn't see anything that looked bad. I did not put it on the motor and run it like I said I would though. I just put it all back together since I didn't find anything. Now for the interesting part...

Now that everything is put back together, I essentially don't have neutral. When I fired it up, with it still on jack stands, the rear wheels started to slowly turn, with the shifter in neutral. I am not sure if I had mentioned before that while in neutral with my foot off the clutch pedal, I had a rapid tapping noise that was not the release bearing, as I disconnected the clutch cable and pulled the clutch fork back so that the release bearing was nowhere near the PP.

Also, I tried shifting through the gears with the car on jack stands. 1st-3rd seemed ok, with only slight "normal" vibrations. 4th got a little worse. 5th went crazy like I described that it does while driving. Loud rattling and the shifter was going all over the place.

With there being essentially no load on the motor (only drivetrain, unless going down the road), it seems to me that this definitely points to tranny issues. I mean, now that neutral is f***ed, I guess I have no choice but to replace it anyway. I mean, the brake holds it, but without the brake, it will move in neutral. Any input would be greatly appreciated, even if it is to back up my assumption that it is in fact a tranny issue. Also, if anyone has a cheap, decentT45 lying around, I may be interested...

Scott

 

My car spins very very slowly in neutral while on stands as well.

 

Interesting....Mine did not do it before I took everything apart, which is what worried me. I mean, as long as the brake holds, I guess it isn't such a big deal, but with that, along with the extreme vibrations in 5th makes me think that the tranny is the problem. I don't know of anything motor related that would only show up in 5th gear. With a solid compression test, I don't think the motor is causing the vibrations. The cams obviously add some vibrations, but it definitely different with the tranny in 5th. I have read elsewhere about someone having vibration problems caused by the gear cluster in the tranny.

Scott

 

Just wanted to update....

I figured out what my problem was. I had both cams installed in the same stroke, so I was having the intake valves and exhaust valves of the opposite cylinders opening at the same time. I guess being in a rush putting things back together after a previous teardown following the initial install, I didn't pay attention to the timing marks lol...

I did everything right this time, and I got them degreed, however, I now seem to be having a tapping noise. I started another thread regarding the issue, but just to summarize, the noise seems to follow the rpms, I have pulled injector connectors and spark wires and had no change. I also couldn't find anything obvious using my stethoscope either.

Scott

 

tapping sounds like PTV... what cams, heads and shortblock. What advance do you have on the cams?

 

VT Stage II cams, PI heads, and stock shortblock, same as in my sig. They are degreed to intake centerline 108, which is actually .5 degrees advanced per the cam card.

Scott

 

Also, didn't specifically check PTV, but I could easily turn the motor over my hand with it on the stand and degreed, and I didn't hear the chain jump a tooth or anything upon startup. The car seemed to drive/run fine for the short distance I took it around block.

What gets me is that I had (I'm going to say) the exact same noise before the teardown, which I attributed to the cams being off like I described and things not opening/closing/firing properly. But, I could mash down the clutch pedal and make it go away. Now, mashing the clutch does nothing.

Listening to it away from the car, it almost sounds like it is coming from the bottom, also if you listen and try to pin point the sound lengthwise on the car, it lines up right with the end of the crank/bellhousing area. I mentioned this above I believe, but I found a post over on MD from way back in 2004 where a guy said he was having tapping noises that turned out to be a cracked pilot bearing vibrating. He said everyone swore that it was coming from the bottomend. The sound clip is no longer available so I can't compare. I checked the pilot bearing before reinstalling the tranny and everything seemed find and I had the tranny all but flush before I tightened the bolts.

Scott

 

sounds like a good place to check. If it's not PTV there are few other things that would follow RPM.. clutch area stuff, bottom end bearings, galled wrist pin, etc...

 

Gonna pull the tranny again tomorrow to see what I find. Is there any problem with taking the bellhousing off the tranny and just putting it on and starting the motor, with the flywheel installed of course?? Is it ok to run it with just the flywheel? I'm just thinking that if I do that and just install one piece at a time, I will know which part is causing the problem, if it is in this area. I still have all my stock parts (clutch/PP/Flywheel), which I know I didn't have these problems with, that I can swap back in if one particular part causes a problem. I noticed that it looked like the flywheel and clutch disc has started to wear a little more so closer to the center hub, but it all looked even.

Scott

 

Starting it w/ only the flywheel shouldn't be a problem.

 

Well, I pulled the tranny yesterday and did in fact find that the pilot bearing was cracked. Got another one, installed it, and just put the h-pipe back up to start it and see if I still heard the noise. I thought I did, but it wasn't as noticeable, and my fiance, standing away from the car, said she didn't hear anything either. I went ahead and put everything back together and started her this morning, only to find the noise again. I said f*** it and drove it around a little bit (nothing hard) to see if by chance it would go away. It did not.

I do not understand what the noise could be. I degreed the cams, so I don't see how I could have PTV. I can turn the motor over easily by hand all the way and I didn't hear the chain jump or anything upon start up. As for the bottomend bearings and stuff, I don't know how they would have all of sudden gone bad. The engine was on the stand for a month, but nothing happened to them while on the stand. It is definitely not a rod bearing, as I mentioned that I know what they sound like.

I am completely frustrated with this thing. It drives great. I don't know if you would "feel" PTV or anything, but it drives smooth and seems to have good power, even though I have had to keep it low. My dad has a guy who has worked on some of his vehicles before that knows his stuff pretty well that I may have take a look it to see what he thinks. I might try to get a sound clip, but all I have is a microphone for my laptop and from past experiences, it doesn't do great clips.

Scott

 

Well after finally getting a chance to pull the motor again this weekend, I found that the tapping problem was in fact PTV. I degreed the driver's side cam again before pulling the head and calculated the intake centerline as installed to be in the neighborhood of 99. Clearly the cam jumped a tooth I suppose during transport from where I did the work and then to the car because I degreed both sides multiple times and came up with 108. When I was starting and running the car, I didn't hear anything that would indicate the jumping occured then, but I don't know.

I pulled the head and checked all the valves and everything actually seemed to be ok. I saw no marks on the face of the valves and they were not bent. With the followers removed, they all looked to be closed properly and everything, so the heads are reinstalled as is. There were obviously some marks on the pistons, which is how I knew that is was PTV, but I guess I made out lucky. I dropped the motor back yesterday right before a rain storm, so I will be spending the week putting the AC, power steering pump, intake, etc. back on. I am still going to fire it without the tranny just make sure everything is still ok before I go through that hassle only to have to pull it again.

Scott

 

damn it sucks being right all the time. Good luck.