I was out datalogging my car today, and when cruising normally on the freeway, I began hearing a terrible sound (metal on metal) coming from near the engine/tranmsission. I immediately pulled over and shut off the car. My first thought was that somehow the car wasn't getting any oil and the engine was eating itself. But then I remembered that I was premixing and that really wouldn't make any sense. And when i started it up again to get it off the freeway, it was much harder to start and the noise persisted. The car drove pretty normally except for the grinding sound - it shifted normally, made the same amount of power, and boosted normally. When i pulled off the freeway and into a parking lot, the car died when I tried to let it idle, and I'm pretty sure it's not going to start now. Before I tow the car and drop the transmission, does anyone have any idea what this could be?

I have an NA drivetrain with a lot more power than normal going through it, so my first thought about the transmission was that the gears just got stripped or something, but it shifted fine and operated normally. I'm seriously at a loss for words to explain what a bitch my car has been this past 6 months. I'd **** on it if it wasn't already dirty. Thanks for any input, as usual.

 

premixing still won't affect the internal oil lubrication system to protect the rotor and stationary bearings, pull the engine oil disptick and make sure the engine has oil in it. next i would check the accessories, try to idle the engine and listen to it from the engine bay, listen and see if the noise is coming from the engine area, the bellhousing or from inside the transmission by moving to different parts of the car while listening.

if it sounds like it is coming from the engine area and the oil is full and has no shiney particles in it then i would remove the drive belts and run the engine for a short period, if the noise goes away you can install the belts one by one until the noise comes back, showing your problem accessory. if it is coming from the transmission area, pull the fill plugs from the transmission and check the oil levels and see if there is any excessive metal debris in it, maybe even drain and refill then tranny and look at the condition of the oil that came out of it. if it is in the bellhousing area then you could have a bearing or clutch going out in that area.

my best guess is the alternator took a dump but it could be one of many things but try what i suggested first and see if you can find where the trouble lies.

good luck.

 

Thanks, it does seem like the alternator would be my best bet. My only accessories are the water pump, the alternator, and the supercharger, and they all run off the same belt, but I'm pretty much only going to be checking the alternator. The car drove totally normally. The gears didn't grind and the clutch didn't slip. The only thing that was abnormal was that grinding noise and what seemed to be an extra bit of load on the engine that caused it to die when it tried to idle (my car was already pretty finicky at idle. The car is running off of a pretty basic map for now, because I'm waiting to put in a new ignition trigger input cable). My only doubt about it being the alternator was that I smelled something that reminded me of the smell of burnt clutch, but I was just so damn confused that I didn't know what I was even trying to smell. Thanks for the input, I'll get on it.

 

Well, thank goodness it wasn't anything major. The bolts on the water pump pulley turned out to be too short and as time went on, they backed out or snapped. The grinding noise was my water pump pulley grinding on my useless crank pulley because all but one of the bolts had snapped off and the pulley was being pulled downwards. I replaced the bolts today, and that took care of things. The only thing is that now I have a pretty ugly looking water pump pulley.

 

nice to hear you got that fixed, still no dyno runs though huh?

 

Yeah, this car is taking its sweet damn time. What sucks is the car got tuned with a loose pulley, so it was maxing out at 10psi. I'm bound to get the (properly shielded) ignition input trigger wire soon, and after that I'll hand my car back over to Chris Green for a professional re-tuning. THEN it's off to the dyno.

Now that I think about it, I really can't think of a reason why I shouldn't have turbocharged the car from the start. Oh well, it would be great to have perfectly clear hindsight before you start a project, but that just doesn't happen.

 

Good luck, hopefully you can finally have a stable running car, you're stories been like a damn soap opera, up and down and all around, pretty soon you're going to walk in on the charger sleeping with a civic or something.