Ticking/knocking under heavy acceleration

myfirstlincoln

myfirstlincoln

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So a little about my car - it's a 2003 v8 with about 140,000 miles. I bought the car around 60,000 miles and have religiously and meticulously maintained it - oil changed with Mobil 1 5w20 and new Wix filter every time the message center tells me to do so (even though I know that's probably overkill).

The problem: I noticed this the other day when it was cold and the issue seems to be more apparent when cold. When I'm driving, all seems fine (plenty of power, steady idle, and no weird sounds at idle). However, I was entering a highway (and the car was still still cold) and when I got on the highway and accelerated around 4k RPM, I heard a ticking/kocking - my window was down and i was driving next to the median so it was pretty obvious. I believe it is coming form the motor. The ticking/knocking speeds up when accelerating faster. The ticking/knocking seems louder when the car is colder and I do not hear ticking/knocking unless under heavy acceleration. Cruising around at anything under 4k rpm and I don't hear it. When the car is warm, it's not very loud and I can barely hear it even when I really get on the throttle.

I recently had the exhaust replaced (from the cats to the tips) and I know my mechanic had some trouble pairing the Magnaflow cats with the stock manifold although I feel like I would hear the ticking under any acceleration if it was an exhaust leak?

After reading some threads, I realize it might be a gas issue (although I always fill up with 92) and/or perhaps an oil/oil filter issue?

I also realize it might be a timing chain issue although I certainly hope it's not and wouldn't I hear that at idle as well?

I'm hoping an oil change and new gas will resolve this but with so many miles on the motor I am concerned. Any ideas/input is appreciated.
 
I would check the accessories linked to the belt, especially the tensioner.
 
Same boat, every time I changed the oil it would go away for a while.

Had RP in it for a little while, same result, got it out quickly and ran Mobil 1 0W20 full synthetic this past season,
may try 5W20 synthetic with a full bottle of Lucas this upcoming summer.

See what that yields.
 
Any idea what the actual problem is? I'm probably going to change the oil in the next couple days (it never stops snowing here). I am debating switching to 0w 20 although I'll probably stick with 5w 20 and also perhaps a new filter - maybe a Pureone although it says that PureOne filters don't flow quite as well as the Mobil 1...but the Pureone I can pick up locally. I can't find the Mobil 1 anywhere around me.
 
myfirstlincoln said:
Any idea what the actual problem is? I'm probably going to change the oil in the next couple days (it never stops snowing here). I am debating switching to 0w 20 although I'll probably stick with 5w 20 and also perhaps a new filter - maybe a Pureone although it says that PureOne filters don't flow quite as well as the Mobil 1...but the Pureone I can pick up locally. I can't find the Mobil 1 anywhere around me.
Click to expand...

Go to Mobil1's web site for the information on the difference between the two. The site is pretty informative, though (DUH!!!) a little biased.
 
jjcool00 said:
Wal-mart has 5 gallon jugs the cheapest I can find, and will ship for free if you order a few at a time. (which you will need anyway).
Click to expand...

Pretty sure he was talking about Mobil 1 filters being hard to find, not Mobil 1 oil.
 
Yeah, I was talking about Mobil 1 oil filters. I literally looked at 15+ different places within 20ish miles of my area - Autozone, Advance, Walmart, Napa, Pepboys, National, etc. I also looked for K&N oil filters and couldn't find those either. In fact, I couldn't even find a Motorcraft filter. The only other filters I would consider are Wix and Purolator and both of those I can find easily so I went Purolator.

Anyway, I went with the PureOne filter and also got some 0W 20 and just finished changing my oil. I also cleaned the air filter so I'm waiting for that to dry to start her up.

I will say the PureOne seems a bit "beefier" than the Wix and I like the textured body of PureOne rather than the smooth body of the Wix filter.
 
So fresh oil, new filter, a bottle of techron and 93 unleaded did not help the problem. I read somewhere it could be a spark plug. I changed my plugs and coils probably about a month ago. I didn't notice this sound until recently though. I used motocraft coils and ngk laser iridium plugs. I would also assume if it were a plug I would have other symptoms. I'm kinda leaning toward slop in the timing chain... :(
 
I'd figure spark knock over a timing chain issue. Have your tried different gas?
 
^^ That's very scary because it sounds very similar to my issue...

Since I'm at 140,000 miles, I would probably try to find a decent used motor before attempting a rebuild. At this point, I plan to drive it and next time it's in the shop I may let them know and see if they can find the problem without ripping the motor apart.
 
BigRigLS said:
Same boat, every time I changed the oil it would go away for a while.

Had RP in it for a little while, same result, got it out quickly and ran Mobil 1 0W20 full synthetic this past season,
may try 5W20 synthetic with a full bottle of Lucas this upcoming summer.

See what that yields.
Click to expand...

I did that for a bit. The Lucas oil didn't work out on my Gen 1, made it idle a bit higher. Don't recommend. IMO, any synthetic 5w20 does well. I switch between brands all the time. Just buy whatever is on sale at Canadian tire or Walmart.
Also, Fram oil filter from Canadian Tire is decent enough.

My engine is purring on my 2002, which I've always loved about this car, despite its ass hat reliability electrics, and mechanical/suspension/body problems.
My engine has been the one thing totally bullet proof on this car. I've been running synthetic since 115,000 KM's (when i got it).
 
My dad had a 1st gen 2000 LS before his 2nd gen 06 and it, upon crank, would make a loud knocking/clicking noise. Then when it idled down you couldn't hear it as much but upon acceleration you could hear it big time. Ended up it was a rod knock and needed a rebuild. The timing chain noise and rod knock are very similar. Maybe record it and post a clip of the noise?
 
Sooooo looking forward to see if my 'slight' ticking under load will stop again on the next oil change.

~ still in storage though.
 
myfirstlincoln said:
So fresh oil, new filter, a bottle of techron and 93 unleaded did not help the problem. I read somewhere it could be a spark plug. I changed my plugs and coils probably about a month ago. I didn't notice this sound until recently though. I used motocraft coils and ngk laser iridium plugs. I would also assume if it were a plug I would have other symptoms. I'm kinda leaning toward slop in the timing chain... :(
Click to expand...

I had ticking from a loose spark plug on my LS quite some time ago. It really did not show any other symptoms. However mine was most noticable at idle. Certainly may be worth looking at.
 
Bumping this dead thread for a few reasons.

Firstly, I PM'd myfirstlincoln about his stated issue with the magnaflow cats pairing with the stock manifold. When I had mine installed I could hear there was a leak but it was the tail end of summer, the people I had install them are friends and did it on the cheap and given that I wouldn't be driving it as much in winter I just let it go for the time being. So while I PM'd myfirstlincoln about it, anyone else with information on this would be appreciated. Basically just looking to see what fixed the issue, and if I can do it in the driveway.


Second, my LS has done this ticking noise for some time now. I can't recall if it did it when I bought it at 54k or not but it did it shortly thereafter. I had the coil issue right off the bat when I got the car and was in the middle of a 300 mile drive when it struck, luckily I could avoid the miss if I kept the car off heavy load so I continued on with a light foot, and later that week replaced coils and plugs. I've had older cars before with really poor cats and one of which had small pieces of converter stuck in the cat and they would bounce around making this non patterned noise ticking under load. Given the coil induced miss, and the sound coming from about my knee, I figured it was the cats. So when I did my exhaust and got magnaflow cats I was concerned/puzzled when the noise was still there.

I could drive mine for the rest of my life and not get it to make the noise, because it only occurs under unique situations. It can only be described as a "ticking" noise, and has no pattern to it just random. The LS is really good at sound isolation and I love that but it makes it difficult when you try to find a noise. It sounds like it's coming from anywhere by my knee to behind the radio. It only occurs under really heavy load, with slowly increasing RPM near the top of the RPM range. If the car is in drive and not in SST it almost never happens because the load needed to make the noise occur would make the car downshift and when it downshifts it will accelerate to the upper RPM range and shift again so quickly that the noise doesn't really manifest itself. You really need to be in SST and make it stay in a gear it doesn't want to be in while accelerating under load with a slowing increasing RPM to make it happen.

Typically when it occurs, I'll be in SST and I'll be going up a long steep grade. I'll be in 5th and I'll go to 4th via SST to say pass a slower car or something. The RPM's will go to about 3500-4500 depending on the speed I was going obviously and I will give it a heavy amount of throttle. Enough so that if it was in drive, it would have probably shifted down again, which is annoying and why I use SST for this situation. Well as I apply more throttle to pass in 4th probably somewhere around 75-90% throttle and the RPM's slowly build the ticking will begin. I'll get one or two and then in about 3 seconds time it's fairly constant but not patterned or RPM synced. It doesn't build after that, or get more frequent. No perceivable loss of power or anything, just this noise. I can back off the throttle to about 65-75%, enough to still pass and the noise stops.

I hope I did an okay job describing this. I can elaborate further if needed. I tried to catch it on video before but from the inside with a camera, and the engine noise produced when in these conditions all you hear is the K&N and the magnaflows.


This has been happening under those circumstances for a while now. It's not getting worse or better, and like I said, it doesn't affect anything else, just a noise. I'll probably do my oil tomorrow and see if it changes, never paid attention to that before.
 
I can't really comment on your ticking issue but from what I've read the recommendation is to try a different oil type - many threads on this. The Magnaflow cats I CAN comment on - when I had the exhaust shop do my cats they told me they had to special order a flange and flange bolts to fit the cats onto the manifold. I don't remember where they got them from or what type they were but they did have to order different components. Could you do this in your driveway? Probably, I don't see why not. If you don't find an answer to your question I will see if the shop has time to lift my car and tell me what flanges they ordered, but maybe you just need to know that you need flanges and the exhaust shop by you will be able to determine which ones. LMK.
 
Yeah I could totally install some flanges, I think. My only issue would be letting the front half of the exhaust system drop and still have enough room to get up in there. if you could contact your shop, maybe they documented what flanges they bought, that would be great.

As far as the ticking noise goes, it never worried me too much because it doesn't sound like any rod knock that I have ever heard.
 
I'll try and place a call and see if that yields any results, if not it will have to wait until next weekend unfortunately as they are closed when I work and this weekend I'm out of town.
 
Chris, I got your pm and your description sounds very similar to what I've experienced. I've basically just ignored the sound and to be honest, my driving style doesn't frequently give cause for the sound to come up. I have 140k on the clock so to be honest, if it is something internally in the engine, I'll drive it until it blows up then replace the engine. With that said, the motor seems healthy and I've changed my oil religiously which also makes me slightly less concerned that it is a major issue.

As far as the cat situation goes, I am not completely sure what my mechanic did, but I do know my mechanic is a stickler for doing work properly (sometimes to a fault as it costs me more money). When I had this done several months ago, he said removing the stock bolts and replacing the bolts would allow the new cats to "pinch" up to the stock manifolds. Unfortunately, he couldn't get one of the bolts off - I believe the place that I attempted to have the cats installed previously (before taking it to my normal mechanic) cross threaded a bolt so it was stuck - that same place gave up because of the issues previously brought up in this thread:
http://www.lincolnvscadillac.com/forum/showthread.php?91775-Magnaflow-Cats-Problem-Need-Help

After this, I spent about 30+ minutes discussing the best possible solution to get the cats to work. We went over:
1. New bolts (which for me wouldn't work because we couldn't get the old ones out)
2. The method he used (below)
3. Cutting the flare off of the Magnaflow cats, slipping the flanges from the stock exhaust onto to the magnaflow system, and then reflaring the magnaflow cats - I don't know if this would work but the stock flanges wouldn't have nearly as much "slop" as the flanges magnaflow supplies so they might "pinch" the new flare and not let the flange ride all the way to top. The concern with this method is that although you are really only cutting about .5 inches off (just the flare), that .5 inches pushes everything up and the angle of the pipe leaving the cats and going into the rest of the exhaust could be weird. And as you know, there isn't much room as the cats magnaflow supplies are a bit larger than stock.

Because of stuck bolt, he went about it in a different way. He kept the stock bolts but I believe those bolts have a nut or some sort of spacer on them which prevents the new magnaflow cats from "pinching" up to the stock manifolds. I cannot confirm this but maybe finding a pic of replacement bolts would? Anyway, he was apparently (after lots of a complaining) able to get a dremel tool to grind/cut that spacer/nut off so the flange of the magnaflow cats would fit snugly on the "bulb"/collector of the stock manifolds. Perhaps it didn't work perfectly and that's why I'm hearing that sound.

In the next couple weeks my car is going in to have the carrier bearing replaced and I plan to have him check the exhaust for leaks/tighten the bolts. Since the carrier bearing requires removal of most of the exhaust anyway, I plan to ask him to look closely where the cats meet the manifold (especially on the driver's side which is where the nose seems to be emanating from) to ensure his "fix" hasn't loosened and that there isn't an exhaust leak.

More info:
Before I ever had the Magnaflows installed, I had a VERY NOTICEABLE ticking sound UNDER ALL ACCELERATION, which was actually a leak where the STOCK cats met the STOCK manifold. At first, I thought it was a leak where the manifold met the block, but my mechanic used a mirror and confirmed it was a leak where the cat connects to the manifold collector. After installing the Magnaflows, that ticking went away and I didn't notice ANY ticking. After a couple months, I started to hear the ticking under heavy acceleration which leads me to believe his "fix" might have loosened - perhaps because he didn't tighten them properly first or because I scraped/hit something and it loosened up. I am lowered and we've had a horrible winter. With the snow and horrible roads, I know I have scraped many times and one of those times could have hit an exhaust pipe. However, I cannot confirm that the sound started after I scraped.

I did my best to explain, so hopefully this helps. If you still have questions, PM me again and I have no problem giving you my number and we can chat on the phone to figure this out!
 
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