Drove the car to the inlaws last night after spending a beautiful 65 degree day in upstate NY cleaning the ol Evo top to bottom. When I got off the highway on the way there I noticed what I thought was a noise from another car, light tapping. Within a few blocks I realized it was my car, and shut it down immediately. Its knocking bad.

I am going to try a cylinder balance test to see if I can narrow it down to a cylinder, and check the obvious with plugs. The car was on fresh mobil one every 3,000 miles, immaculately maintained, and the boost was actually dialed down a few clicks. Bummer.

 

sorry to hear man...how many miles? you sure is rod knock and not a lifter or something?

 

dont jump to conclusion yet bro....i had something like this happen to me a while back and i thought i spun a bearing but turned out that my AC compressor pulley broke off and was making noise and it sounded real close to rod knock.

 

I hope it isn't tragic but if it is please document the diagnosis.

 

Thank you all for your thoughts. Upon pulling the plugs I have found no physical damage to any of them, only two of them smelled strongly of unburnt fuel. The oil level seems fine ( recently changed), and coolant is still up but a bit murky in appearance. When I tried to start it the last time the car really struggled to get going, and the battery was showing around 10.6 volts. Thinking it may be down on power, I set the car up for a jump start, and as I was turning it over I got a good deal of smoke out of the alternator ( only a few years old), and the strong smell of hot electronics. At this point I have shut it down, and I am trickle charging the battery overnight. I am going to give it another shot tomorrow, just to see if maybe the battery is the issue. But still, I have a hard time even thinking it would sound this bad on 2 cylinders. I am going to try to link a video to get some more opinions.

 

Delete

 

Ur the man! Ripped into it further today and sure as ****, the second I took the serpentine belt off it it cleaned right up and runs super smooth. Turns out my AC pulley self destructed, and sounded outright horrible. I had reshimmed it last summer and forgot about it, must have run out of clearance and overheated. Unreal.

Moral of the story, don't jump to conclusions when you hear bad things. I can't even explain how bad this car sounded, I'm still astonished the motor isn't blown. But I'll take it!!!!!!

 

sweet dude...!!!!!

 

I was going to say it was the alternator pulley based on the sound and uncharged battery. I guess it makes sense that anything run but the serpentine belt would cause the same problem. Glad you got it fixed!