I'm 2 weeks away from my next LeMons race, and I finally got the M50 swap in my E30 mostly buttoned up, so I fired it up and let it run for a while. The car was idling fine for a few minutes until I started hearing a chirping/bearing type sound from the front of the engine. It started all of a sudden and kept going. It sounded similar to a bad alternator or water pump bearing, so I figured it might be one of the belt driven accessories, To eliminate them I pulled the belt and fired it up again. The noise was still there. Not good. I put the belt back on, and the noise went away for a while, then came back. Pulled the belt off again, was there again. Oil pressure is good - 50-60 PSI at idle according to my VDO gauge, and it sounded good otherwise.
It seems to be coming from the bottom end, and was loudest at the bottom end of the oil pan. When I originally got the engine, I pulled the oil pan off, replaced the pump nut with one that has safety wire, and put it back together because everything looked nice and clean. So based on this. I thought maybe the safety wire was hitting something?
So I decided to pull the oil pan, which meant pulling the subframe and front suspension, then pulling back the G260 trans.... luckily we cheated and were able to just pull the trans far enough back to access the last two bolts without pulling the whole thing from the car. Got the pan off and found nothing unusual. The oil looked clean, pulley and nut were still on, chain appeared to be okay. I didn't plan on pulling any main bearing caps off but I suppose I could. I considered replacing the oil pump until I learned that it was over $200 (I work for a parts distributor and that's my cost!).
Backstory on the engine - I got it from another former LeMons car which crashed. Engine has about 170K on it and went through two races without issue. I drove the car before buying it and parting it out for the engine and it was fine. I swapped the G250 for our original G260, but everything else (other than typical gaskets and stuff) is what came with the engine.
Does anyone have any clue what this could be? To say I'm frustrated is an understatement. With the amount of time and effort I've put into the car, and given that I basically only have one weekend left before the race, I'm on the verge of a meltdown. I don't have time to completely pull apart the engine. I'm at the point of just putting it together, crossing my fingers, and hoping for the best.
Help!
It seems to be coming from the bottom end, and was loudest at the bottom end of the oil pan. When I originally got the engine, I pulled the oil pan off, replaced the pump nut with one that has safety wire, and put it back together because everything looked nice and clean. So based on this. I thought maybe the safety wire was hitting something?
So I decided to pull the oil pan, which meant pulling the subframe and front suspension, then pulling back the G260 trans.... luckily we cheated and were able to just pull the trans far enough back to access the last two bolts without pulling the whole thing from the car. Got the pan off and found nothing unusual. The oil looked clean, pulley and nut were still on, chain appeared to be okay. I didn't plan on pulling any main bearing caps off but I suppose I could. I considered replacing the oil pump until I learned that it was over $200 (I work for a parts distributor and that's my cost!).
Backstory on the engine - I got it from another former LeMons car which crashed. Engine has about 170K on it and went through two races without issue. I drove the car before buying it and parting it out for the engine and it was fine. I swapped the G250 for our original G260, but everything else (other than typical gaskets and stuff) is what came with the engine.
Does anyone have any clue what this could be? To say I'm frustrated is an understatement. With the amount of time and effort I've put into the car, and given that I basically only have one weekend left before the race, I'm on the verge of a meltdown. I don't have time to completely pull apart the engine. I'm at the point of just putting it together, crossing my fingers, and hoping for the best.
Help!
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