appear

Hi'


My car have been displaying symptoms of bad lifters so I had first the lower replaced a few weeks back. Yesterday I got the car back with new upper lifters. Work was done by the best shop (one of very few) in Denmark. They mentioned a few of the lifters were not looking that healthy and the rubber had seperated.

Unfortunately, that have done nothing to remedy the problem for me. After one night in the garage, the ticking noise was back this morning, exactly as before. Before parking it yesterday I gave the car a 30 minute italian tune-up on the highway to ensure the lifters were 'pumped'.

The very low volume (can't be heard over low volume radio) and 'undramatic' sounding ticking begins from approx. 1.500 rpms and continues up to 3.000 rpms and increases in intensity with the rpms (I wont go higher than 3.000 in the warmup phase but I am certain the noise would persist all through the rev range). After 3-4 minutes of driving it's completely gone (well, MAYBE I'm hearing in @ 4.500+ revs at hard accelration, but I'm not sure those sounds are related). From what I have read here it is a classic sign of lifters gone bad, but since the sound has not changed even the slightest by replacing all lifters I think my diagnose might be wrong.

I called the garage today to seek their advice, and they mentioned that I could try an Ocane booster or '99 Octane Shell V-Power' - my car is ROW and drives on 95 Octane. Does their suggestion make sense?

I am thinking and fearing valve guides or a worn piston however I do not know if that rimes with the behaviour described above? Experts please chime in. I had the sparkplugs changed right when I got it, could a bad plug be causing this?

The car (98' C2S @ 56K Mileage) doesn't burn exessive oil, there are no 'noises' at idle and it pulls very strong. The issue has been there for the previous 5-6.000 miles (since I got it) and hasn't really changed.

Any advice here towards things I could try out to diagnose or fix this issue would be highly appreciated!


Thank you

geolab

By convention, there is ticking, and there is pinging. Both are not the same, but can do the same sounds at the same place.
Ticking is from lifters and oil, valves pinging is mainly from timing or gas or several other factors.
To make sure it is not pinging, 99 octane is great way to check the difference.
That is, if an engine pings on hard acceleration, with higher octane, it will ping less, or no ping
at all.

Jeff96-993

Check that your secondary distributor is functioning. Pull the cap off and make sure the belt is OK.

I'd think you'd get a CEL, but I'm not sure it would show up on a ROW car.

murfysflaw

When I had some noisy lifters, they were noisy at lower RPMs only and went away as RPMs increased. As others indicated above, I suspect it's not the lifters you're hearing.

No HTwo O

What oil are you using? Brand and viscosity.

appear

Thank you geo. I was not aware of the difference between pinging and ticking, so that is very useful. I just refilled the car yesterday with 95octane so I will need to wait some time before it is low enough to refill with 99 octane.

Secondary distributor - can you please point me in the right direction?

Thanks.

EDIT: I found a guide on Robins page re. this.

This is a very interresting possible solution to my problem.

You are probably right - sigh! At least a few of my lifters had gone bad so it's not a complete waste of money to have replaced them all.

jan the man

last year i replaced all of my lifters because of ticking at warm up. Afterwards it was better, but one still ticked badly upon start up, replaced that one again two months ago. Still ticks a little untill i have driven it for about 5 minutes or so, then the noise stops. When the car is warmed up i have no ticking at all. 65k miles no oil burning.

appear

Great to know Jan, thanks for sharing your experience!

appear

So I tried diagnosing the dual distributor tonight.

First thing I did was unplugging the small power lead (low tension I believe) on the side of the primary distributor and see if the car would start on the secondary distributor - that worked fine, the car started up with a slight hesitation at first.

I also removed the vent hose below the power-plug (see this thread: https://rennlist.com/forums/993-foru...utor-belt.html ) and I could see the belt spinning.

I found a few threads on here with people talking about bad distributor-bearings causing similar issues such as pinging/ticking under acceleration. How do I diagnose a bad distributor-bearing?

On top of this issue my car has a whine that comes through the speakers and is very RPM dependent. Only solution is to turn up the audio very loud for 5-10 secs or turning off the stereo for a long while. I read in a thread here that a person with the same issue found his distributor to be the cause.

I also have a slight whine from the engine bay that seems to be affected by power consumption, for example if I use both power windows the noise increases a bit.

I recently replaced both alternator and main fan bearing in an attempt to fix these whine-issues, but it didn't help the slightest

I have a feeling all these issues might turn out to be related somehow.

If someone could help me I would very grateful. These issues are really sucking the joy out of 993 ownership these days.


Thank you guys!

berni29

Hi

I would go the stethescope route and try to track the location of the noise down. That would be some garden hose against the ear and directed around, and then a stick used against the ear. Usea broom handle so you do not injure yourself too badly if you are a bit too enthusiastic.

Also you could run the car in the dark and have a good look for any arcing. Not in a closed garage though.

Best of luck

Berni

appear

The problem is that there is only ticking when I drive the car - at idle it seems very quiet. If it is pinging from a faulty distributor will it also ping at idle?

I will try to look for arcing around the spark plugs.

Any advice towards how to check the distributor bearings or other suggestions to my description above is very welcome.

Flying Finn

I'm also leaning against the lifters but just in case, there are 3 different length lifters, it seems your engine wasn't opened in past so it's probably not that but it might.

If you have the old lifters, look up the numbers from there and check if they are the "normal" height or longer (sorry, don't remember how the numbers go but you'll find the info from the forum)

Steve Weiner-Rennsport Systems

Another well-documented source for ticking noises are plug wires & connections. Bad (old) plug wires that are not properly seating make the same sounds.

If your plug wires have been on there for more than 30K miles, its time for new ones. Make certain that ALL connections: plugs and distributor caps, are properly seated since any arcing makes the same sounds.

appear

Steve - thanks for your input! I have just booked an appoint with Porsche to have plug wires replaced based on your advice.

I also tried out starting the car with each distiributor disconnected (at the coil) and the car started up just fine both times so I guess I can rule a broken belt out.

So if it is ignition related I guess I am down to bad plug wires, worn distributor belt (missing a teeth) or a bad rotor. I will have all these issues diagnosed incl. the spark plugs when the wires get replaced.

Suggestions to other things the porsche mechanics could check for that relates to the ticking/pinging is very welcome!

I will report back!

Thanks everyone!

911Dave

Check underneath for a bomb.