My mystery sound persists. I have a stethescope now, and spent the better part of an hour listening to different parts of the engine to no avail. I can not for the life of me figure out where it is comming from. I think the sound is the same on the uptake of the engine rev and when under load. It sounds like a lower frequency than what I would immagine piston slap to be. I listened to all different parts of the exhaust manifold and intake manifold. All over the valve cover timing cover, head and block where I could get at it, and no matter where I had the stethescope it sounded far away. I changed the spark plugs tonight to make certain that I wasnt getting poor spark in a cylinder. I set the timing to 8deg before TDC, I tried moving the distributor 1 tooth, but I couldnt get within range of the distributor slide to get it down to 5deg. Please anyone thoughts? Here is the link to the video again. http://www.youtube.com/results?searc...oomster81&aq=f . If a video of something in particular or pictures of something would help please let me know. Thanks.

 

Sorry should mention if it isnt obvious it's a 1990 22re

 

Also the video is with the wheels chocked and under load

 

It sounds a helluva lot like an EGR Valve issue, or exhaust leak of some kind.

 

The more I listen to that sound, the more I think it's the timing.

 

I've NEVER heard timing sound like that....

 

it sounded like an exhaust leak did you check the gasket on the down pipe? mine sounded like that when they went out, well more fell apart.

 

I had the stethescope all over the egr valve last night. I will drop the down pipe tonight and look at those doughnut gaskets, to make certain there is nothing too screwy with them. Thank you all for your advice. PS I played with the timing for a while last night. I have it set to 8deg now, but that is maxed out in the slider range for the distributor. I tried changing the tooth, but then it is maxed out the other way. I have the jumper in, and it's flashing the engine light. I'll let you know the results of changing the doughnut gaskets. Also I just changed the gasket from the injection tube connecting to the crossover pipe from the manafold to try to get rid of the sound to no avail. I think I will pick up the gaskets between the injector tube and manifold tonight to see if that does anything for me. Thank you all.

 

So tonight I changed out the dougnut gaskets between the manifold and down pipe. While I was down there I noticed that the o2 sensor was sitting on top of the exhaust pipe. Not good. Luckily it hadnt been sitting there too long so no exposed wires. I still wanted to be certain though so I cut all the wires and spliced back in new ones. The sound did persist, now I may be hearing things but it did seem lessened, but still obviously there.

 

Hello all thankyou for all your advice. In the end it was the exhaust tube comming into the PAIR valve. the bolts for it were loose causing an exhaust leak and a lean mix.

 

Glad you found it! I KNEW it was an exhaust leak! As I was reading the thread, the PAIR was going to be my next suggestion; noisy little buggers, aren't they~