Tom Pultz

So... a couple of years ago my son gave me his 1989 944 Turbo for a variety of reasons. I drive it occasionally, but most of the time it's in my garage since I have 3 other cars to drive. Yesterday I started it and ran it until warm. I noticed if I raised the rpm above idle and held it there it would start to make a rather loud clackity-clackity-clackity sound, which seemed to be coming from under the intake manifold... but was hard to be certain.

Any ideas what this might be? Thanks for any thoughts. The 951 has 139K miles.

Tom M'Guinn

A video with good audio might help. Clickity-click sounds on these motors tend to be dry or bad lifters, exhaust leaks, or loud injectors, with lifters at the top of the leader board. Try driving it for at least half and hour. What weight oil do you use? My lifters are quieter with 10W-40....

Tom Pultz

Thanks Tom. I'm going to make a video today as my local shop wanted to hear the noise. Unfortunately I can't drive the car since there's an issue with the clutch... pedal goes to the floor and there's a bit of fluid on the garage floor. My initial guess was an injector, but it could certainly be something else.

I'm not sure what weight oil it has; the last oil change was with "SWEPCO" (no wt details provided) according to the receipt from 2018 before I got it from my son and it basically went into storage in my garage. It's only been driven a few hundred miles since. I use 10W40 Redline in my S2 and it's never had any noise issues.

mj951

Likely not an issue with your clutch but rather the clutch line or a cylinder.
Any fluid on the drivers side floor board, that would be your master cylinder failing?
Slave cylinder next to the starter and blue clutch hose in the engine bay at the fire wall are also suspect.
I would plan to replace all three, not worth replacing only one item only to have another fail shortly there after.
Not a terrible job but replacing the master cylinder requires a difficult work position, lying upside down, head first with the drivers seat removed.
Full bleed of the system once the parts are replaced. Possibly multiple bleeds to get the pedal back up.
Good luck.

Tom Pultz

Here's a link to a short 30 sec video. The sound is very metallic and is more pronounced than picked up in this video. It's definitely towards the rear cylinder... probably a lifter.

https://1drv.ms/v/s!AtHS0jWEezJSw1xZ...KzcbL?e=geOlCr

Rob 3

I have an 89 that sat for some time (several months) after I moved from SoCal to Nashville and had a clicking or loud ticking. I asked a local Porsche Guru for advice and he thought sticky lifters. At his suggestion I used a combo of ATF and injector cleaner in the oil to clean them out. Ran it to get up to temp and it seemed to do the trick. I did a full oil change and haven't had an issue since then and that was several years ago.
Listening to the video, my sticky valves seemed a lot noisier so a second thought might be gas.
If it has been sitting it could also be old gas which could contribute to sticky injectors. You might try running some fresh high octane through the system.

Seattle 993

It sounds like a lifter to me. If the car has sat that long I’d let it idle for about 15-20 minutes and it will likely disappear once the oil gets warm enough, thins, and fills the lifter. I run VR1 20-50 and that has happened to me a couple of times...when I drive it more often it doesn’t. Same for my 993 which also has hydraulic lifters. Not to worry Tom.

jerome951

Hey Tom,
Glad to see you're still around w/ a 944...
As others have said, sounds like a sticky lifter and advice given above is spot-on. Warm the oil and it should go away.
Outside of track season I only start the car once a month or so. Thicker oil in the pan seemed to exacerbate the sticky lifter issue so now I fill w/ 5-30 for winter storage and rarely have lifter noise..

PEvans

I had the same sound and it was lifters I did not get so lucky fooling with additives or oil. I had replaced the camshaft some years ago, and now one of the lobes was badly worn. So possibly one or two of my lifters had some damage. Anyway I ended up replacing (having replaced) the entire cam housing assembly. That fixed everything and it is great now. :-)