The IV's occasionally make a noise like this and on the IX's it is the timing belt rubbing. I understand Mitsubishi has a revised engine mount out as a fix. I never heard of an VIII having this problem but maybe look there.

 

Pulled the valve cover and there was nothing obvious sticking out. When I tried to start it, however, there was sort of grinding during the cranking process. Does this narrow it down a bit for anyone?

Timing looks to be fine and i dont here the noise when manually turning the crank

 

Maybe remove the accessory belt and start the car to see if it stills make the noise or not. Narrow it down to engine or not.

 

one headache after another...

I talked to a guy at a performance shop here and he thinks the turbo is done for. He says the sound is the aluminum fins hitting the compressor cover...

On a side note the car will not even start now. When I turn the key I can feel vibrations through the key and i just hear grinding. What a Sh***y way to start this year. Is this the starter or something else?

 

You can take the air intake off and look into the compressor housing. If the shaft was messed up and the compressor wheel was rubbing against the cover it would be totally obvious as it would be all scratched up right there. Is the engine turning over when you turn the key or is it just making a grinding noise and doing nothing else? When you rotated the engine manually you didn't do that backwards did you?

 

found this video. I think the performance shop guy hit the nail on the head. When the guy in the video spins the shaft and the fins hit the housing that sounds like the same exact sound.

Engine is not turning over. It doesnt seem like it wants to do anything, just straight grinding

 

It's hard to say if its the exact same sound since the guy isn't running his engine. I agree with you that it sounds like a slowed down version of the noise your car is making though. Ez way to tell like I said before pull your intake off and spin the compressor and listen. If you need a new turbo I have a low mileage EVO IX turbo with no shaft play that runs amazingly I could sell you. Most ppl charge $550 for a used IX turbo but I swapped over to a 20g turbo so I have my stock one left over and would sell it for pretty cheap. Maybe like $400 and that would include shipping and Paypal fees too. Let me know if you're interested and good luck with this man. I know how stressful these cars can be at times :-/ this turbo was running 25psi all day long and was strong when removed from my car. I just wanted something bigger lol

 

Thanks man. I'm about to pull the intake right now. I may take you up on that offer.

 

try rotating the engine by hand a bit and cranking again. You may have a chipped tooth or two on your flywheel thats preventing the starter from engaging. If that fails, pull the starter and check the gear and flywheel for issues.

 

Just rotated the engine a bit all of the grinding is gone. All I hear now is just the starter spinning. It doesnt sound like its even reaching out and touching the flywheel. Got a new one ordered. Hopefully that fixes the starting issue.

Gonna have to wait a little to pull the intake. Its windy as hell right now. I dont feel like working with the threat of the hood being thrown on top of my head...or worse, slamming onto my fingers

 

yah thats exactly what mine did when it failed. At least its easy to change on our cars. I would shine a light in once you have pulled it and inspect the flywheel teeth just to be on the safe side.

 

This. Have a friend slowly rotate the engine manually while you are looking in at the flywheel to inspect it all the way around.

 

Got the intake off. Here is a picture of the housing.

It didnt feel like there was that much play in the shaft

 

I suppose 10 years is a good run for a starter, but I hate the fact that it happened at the same time as this other issue lol.

Thanks for the advice though man

 

My IX turbo and the rebuilt TD05HR 20g I currently have were smooth in the compressor neck. That looks weird to me like there are a bunch of lines in the casting. Maybe that's normal on a VIII turbo but I've never seen an VIII turbo in person so who knows, to my knowledge the only difference should be the larger hotside. If you can spin the shaft and its not scraping you're all good on that front. Try maybe pushing what little shaft play you have in one direction while you are spinning it to see of it makes contact with the housing. That noise still sounds valvetrain related to me though. And now you have to wait for the starter until you can tackle the other issue. I'm wondering now though if the noise was your starter solenoid not disengaging after the car was started. Like the flywheel was dragging the starter along "for the ride". That would be ****, two birds one stone, and you're back in business. good luck and keep us updated.