When the car is running there is a strange tick tick tick noise coming from the engine, sounds kinda like the fan blade catching on something, however the noise seems to be comming from some where on the spark plug side, but it does not sound like it is comming from any of the belts any ideas?

 

Turbo or NA? Is it a extreme rapid ticking? or a more slow ticking?

Steve

 

Turbo
Not extremely rapid, about 3 -4 tick's per sec at idle, engine make too much noise when reving to notice if it gets faster, may be it's just me but it seems to be geting louder (over the last week or so)

 

could be yhe injectors

 

Are you saying it's normal for injectors to tick, or that they tick when they're going out, or what?

 

The injectors are always clicking. I doubt it would be audiable from inside the car though. Hard to figure out without hearing. Can you narrow down where it is coming from more?

 

It's probably one of the solenoids.

Steve

 

Injectors can start to click if they are worn, depends on brand though.

Have you ever heard a high milage BMW E30 sounds like a maladjusted valve

 

If you look at the engine specifically where you drop your oil in, to the left of that and then down a bit, sounds like it is comming from the other side of the belts (towards the cabin) but not to far back.

 

Try using a stethoscope or a big screwdriver, put it in your ear(not all the way) and place it against where the sound comes from, once you have located it, take a picture and mark the area, then let us know

 

The tic, tic could possibly be coming from a sparkplug wire that is not fully shoved into its boot, and the tic is the arcing b/t the end of the wire and the sparkplug. Or the same scenario but at the coil assy. Pull or push both wires on the coil assy and see it they were all the way in the coil bores.

 

Odds are it's a spark leak.

Make sure you have insurance if it finds a fuel leak.

 

Ohh and dont do the stethoscope thing on the sparkplug wires

 

I had this problem. Turned out to be a bad spark plug. Once that was done, no more ticking!

 

I'll check the plugs cheers..

my tool kit seems to be missing the old stethoscope

 

ever find out what it was?

 

An exhaust leak can also cause a ticking noise.

 

I'm having a similar problem, but I can definitely see sparks coming from my trailing coil, rear rotor. What's funny is that if I unplug the wire from the coil, sparks still come from the coil, but the engine doesn't idle any differently. You guys think it's a bad plug or bad coil? (Please don't let it be a bad coil)

 

Sounds like the plug is bad if you unplug the wire from coil and it's still sparking.

 

The spark will find the path of least resistance.
Clean up any dirt or grease that may be carbon tracking across the surface of the coil post.

I'll bet the wire is bad.

 

If the wire or the plug are bad, then why would the coil still spark when there is nothing plugged in. Do ignitor coils usually spark against the housing when there is nothing plugged in.