With the warmer days, my open windows have revealed a new sound. What I am hearing is a rattle or ticking when under throttle. Seems to be worse upon cold start. These are the conditions it seems correlate to:

1) Under load. I do seem to hear it when reving in neutral. It also doesn't seem to happen when under very light throttle either.
2) Fully in gear. With the clutch fully engaged is when I hear the noise. Not while engaging the clutch.
3) More noticable at lowish revs, below 3k. Definitely hear it more before the power kicks in from the turbo, but my car is noisy so I could just not be hearing it over everything else.

So a normal senario. Car at a stop. Little throttle. Engage clutch. Gain speed as engaging. Clutch fully engaged. Trottle. Tick tick tick tick tick. Going.

Another scenario. Car rolling at lower rev (2.5k) keeping constant speed. Add throttle. Some acceleration. Tick tick tick tick. Going.

Once I am going, I can't hear it, but like I said my car is noisy so I may just not hear it.

I took a video where you can hear a little of tick, but it does not fully capture the experience. I'll see if I can upload a better example

Recent work completed (within 1yr) at the dealer

• Head gasket
• Clutch
• Slave cylinder
• Flywheel
• Clutch pivot fork
• 88k miles with no tune.

 

Took the above video today. You can hear a small tick tick as I get going.

 

OK, after driving around more today, I mostly seem to hear it right before boost during the turbo lag period. ALSO, I heard it a few times coming off of throttle. When I can rear it really well, it sounds kinda metallic-ish. I also attached below a reading from my Torque app to see what kind of boost I am getting. The red arrows showing the max reading. I am going to try to graph some of the data later today.

So here is my revised scenarios:

From a standstill

• Little throttle.
• Engage clutch.
• Gain speed as engaging.
• Clutch fully engaged.
• More Throttle.
• Tick tick tick tick tick.
• Going.
• Off Throttle.
• Tick Tick

While rolling

• Car rolling at lower rev (below 2.5k) keeping constant speed.
• Add throttle
• Tick tick tick tick
• Going
• Off Throttle
• Tick Tick

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You have the N14 engine. Have you read all the threads about the N14 timing chain and tensioner? There's also an extended warranty on that.

 

I have, and the chain is one of my leading candidates. I changed the tensioner some time ago. When I took it in for the head gasket early last year, I did ask that they look over the timing chain and assembly to see if we should go ahead and replace it. From what they claim it was ok.

On another note. A check I was considering, that I could do, may be too pull the intake tube off the turbo and check for play.

 

i have the same problem. it's probably hydraulic tappets. i couldn't find any remedy either.

 

That's a good thought. I might try some LiquiMoly Lifter Additive to see it will quite the noise, if only for a short time. Might tell me if that is the cause, and if not I will have only spent $10.

 

UPDATE.

No surprise, but the additive did not do much for the noise but I have had a fair amount of hard cold starts and have not had on since, so that is good!

As for the ticking, for sure it is more noticable on a cold start.[size=3] As I hear it happen, I do feel like I have less power in lower rpm, or at least more turbo lag than I feel is normal. Maybe I am crazy?[/size]