Recent content by Schwamm

Pope parts are now available from somewhere else. After welding my stock manifold twice I went to a pope and it's been great

Still sounds like an ignition problem to me. My parts store coils last 2-3 years before they start to fail. It's not always catastrophic, sometimes it just starts missing under load. I'd check wires and plugs too. It's worth buying another coil and swapping it in to see if you fix the issue...

I rebuilt my engine a few months back, and it now doesn't idle quite right. There is vibration, and the RPM needle fluctuates just a bit. It didn't do this before, and I also saw a slight drop in MPG since. Other than idle the car drives fine. Even kicking on the AC compressor fixes the...

Last night I dug up my old, original timing belt with 140k miles on it and installed it with the old tensioner and idler, and for the first time the noise went away. I also noticed that the tensioner was able to pivot easily even when tightened down, so the tensioner spring was really doing its...

I redid the end caps on the cams last night and didn't see a change. I noticed my timing belt has a significant amount of side-to-side wobble. You can see it plainly even at idle when the covers are off. Is this normal? Is it possible to stretch the belt too much when installing it? I installed...

So I noticed a tiny oil leak from one cam seal, and combined with the wear I saw on them I'm thinking maybe the caps behind the cam gears are not fully seated. I did use RTV and torqued the bolts to 8ftlbs so it's possible I used too much RTV and those end caps aren't flush, which would allow...

Random question. Could cam seals cause this? When I first installed them I didn't oil them well. I re-installed the cams and oiled them the second time around, but the seals themselves had wear marks on either side, 180 apart where the cap meets the head. Do these spin with the cam, and can...

I did - they went back on exactly as they came off

Any ideas are helpful. I know a video only does so much. Yes, it happens without the water pump. Since the noise changes with the tension on the belt I also think I can rule out the oil pump. The only things turning are the cams, crank, oil pump, and timing components. I had not considered...

Yes the covers have been off while I'm doing this testing. The valve cover and crank pulley are the only things on. I do see a little black residue on the tensioner and idler on occasion, even though the belt is brand new. Not sure if the noise could be coming from the belt making contact with...

I agree that is sounds like rubbing, but there isn't an obvious place where it's rubbing that I can see, nor is the belt damaged. I have been running it with the timing covers off for now. I'm tempted to just order all new OEM timing components today...

I posted this in the Mazdaspeed forum already but there doesn't seem to be much activity there. I rebuilt my engine recently and now have a whining noise coming from the belts that I can't figure out. I've already done a lot of troubleshooting and it has stumped me for about a month now...

It actually wasn't the tensioner. The noise was just quieter when the belt was looser. I still can't solve this and so far I've tried: 1. Running the car without accessory belts (a/c, water pump, etc.) 2. Swapping out the tensioner and idler for an old set 3. Buying a new tensioner 4...

Looks like it's the timing belt tensioner. I put my old one back on and the noise went away. Somehow it got messed up during the rebuild and was vibrating against the timing belt when it spun

I just got my car running again after a rebuild. It runs great, just like it used to, except for a strange whining noise near the left side of the engine (belts area). I can hear it over the engine noise when driving, and it becomes more high pitched at higher RPMs. I took each accessory belt...