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High Pitched Engine Rattle


AustinGT

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Well, that stupid coolant leak was fixed (leak in the thermostat housing), but ever since I got the car back under light to moderate acceleration I hear a high pitched rattle, almost like an exhaust leak. It isn't there at idle, and happens when the car is fully warmed up, usually between 1500 and 2000 rpm. I tend to be paranoid about noises, but I want to make sure it isn't something that can seriously harm the engine. I looked at some other posts and saw some discussion about the heat shields on the cats being loose... don't know if that could be a problem, but I doubt if it is pinging or anything related to that as I have always used 91+ octane on this car. I realize it could be a myriad of things, but because it is only at certain rpms and high pitched that helps narrow the spectrum a little. Again, thanks in advance, this board has been enormously helpful....

p.s.- could it be anything the shop could've done, even though it was a simple job...?

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It sounds a lot like a cracked egr pipe to me. I look back on the day that I capped mine off with great fondness because a cracked egr pipe really makes a fine car like the LS sound like a jalopy!

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Oh man, from what I have heard the egr pipe is a total pain in the butt to fix :cries: ... is there a telltale sign that it would be the egr pipe? The noise isn't constant, so I guess my question now would be, seeing as I won't need to have the car smogged for another year and a half, would it harm anything to wait a month or two? Also, is there a way a good exhaust shop could weld or somehow fix the pipe without the hassle of removing the tranny and stuff? Thanks for your input......

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Oh man, from what I have heard the egr pipe is a total pain in the butt to fix :cries: ... is there a telltale sign that it would be the egr pipe? The noise isn't constant, so I guess my question now would be, seeing as I won't need to have the car smogged for another year and a half, would it harm anything to wait a month or two? Also, is there a way a good exhaust shop could weld or somehow fix the pipe without the hassle of removing the tranny and stuff? Thanks for your input......
Other than getting under the car and inspecting the egr pipe which would have to be done more with your hands than your eyes since they snaked this pipe tightly between the engine and firewall, there's no way to know for sure, but the symptoms that you wrote match up exactly with the symptoms (mostly a rattle/ticking noise that occurs between roughly 1500-3500 rpms.) that I had with my cracked egr pipe. No, there's no harm in driving around as is. My pipe had cracked in two pieces, so it was an easy fix (didn't remove the tranny) for me by unbolting the bottom half from the exhaust manifold, pinching it shut, and reinstalling it. You could do the same fix with your car, but I don't know what effect (if any) it would have when you go to do your emission testing.
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Thanks guys... for now I will do the watchful waiting deal, and listen for it getting louder/more frequent. This weekend I will try to see how bad the leak is, but if it is bad there is an exhaust shop in town that I have heard does work on almost any car, hopefully including the LS! Knowing that this is not a "life-threatening" issue is a huge relief....

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