Sick wheels, they look familiar!

 

Exhaust mani leak or your plugs-wires/coils. A rat climbed in my engine bay overnight, you can't make this up, chewed threw my plugs/wires/coils and made my car sound like a subie. Check them. I replaced them months ago and the sound never came back.

 

Still haven't had time to drive it (damn work getting in the way). Started it this morning and it sounded like the above video for the first 30 seconds after that it was pretty much normal, maybe a little rough/hesitant but damn cose to perfect.

Now i'm thinking maybe just a bad plug or something? I'll have to see if I can find plugs for ths thing locally, always been a problem in the past.

 

Allright, only had time to pull 2 plugs on my short lunch break (unfortunately can't get new ones until tomorrow)

To my surprise there NGK LFR6A plugs. When it was tuned they said they put in a fresh set of plugs, I just assumed they were OEM plugs.



Both plugs I pulled looked exactly like that one. I don't want to sound like an idiot, but do these plugs not have the small tip on the end? I was under the impression that all plugs had the small tip on the end.....

These plugs have no more than 1K miles on them.

I also drove the car on my break and it seemed to idle ok with a maybe a slight miss every once in a while, so i drove it and it was fine. Then about 3/4 mile later it was way down on power again, like it was down a cylinder, but no obvious misfires, just no power.

 

They don't have a small tip because they are copper, not iridium.

 

makes sense. I have an OEM set coming tomorrow to replace these.

I also looked for a big boost leak somewhere and all the clamps/hoses are on good.

Still no check engine light either.

 

Doesn't sound like rod knock, I've been with someone when his bearings went and that isn't it. Have you checked around to see if any exhaust manifold bolts have backed out? That's pretty strange. Do you have any way to log anything? You can test alot with ecuscan and a laptop. Check all 4 cylinders for spark. You may have something intermittently failing like a wire, I doubt it's a coil because if it was then 2 cylinders would go down and it would probably not even idle very well if at all. That sounds like it's idling fine, just loudly, like something isn't sealed.

 

sounds to me like you have a valve stuck. Try pulling the spark plugs off one at a time while the car is running, all of the plugs will change the sound/running condition of the car escept the one that is bad(maybe more then one but more then likely its just one). if it was just a stuck valve it could have gotten unstuck but it will more then likely stick again. hope this helps, I just realized I didnt read the whole thread before I replied so if I'm wrong oops my bad.

 

your plugs look fine as far as i can tell. well normal at least.

 

It's sort of intermittent. The first minute or 2 I was driving all seemed normal and I even went into boost alittle bit and it seemed fine. Then all of a sudden driving normally the engine changed sounds and the car lost pretty much all power. To get it going from a stop without stalling requires giving it quite a bit of gas and even then it takes forevery to get up to speed.

 

I still think it's a stuck valve!

 

What your saying makes sense. I'll try that as soon as I get home tonight.

 

If the valves are unsticking it could be that your springs are getting weak or the valve is binding some how which would explain why it runs good for a short time and then acts up again.

 

Well the car has stock springs/retainers and has kelford 272 cams in it for 40-50K miles, I had springs/retainers on the list for next month. That way I could rev this 6262 higher than 7500RPM's.

 

yeah changing your springs and retainers can help alot, I'm running the WORKS Ti set and I love them! My redline is 7800 now and its kinda nice, wierd to see the needle go into the red arc on the tach the first few time though! lol