in 1st and 2nd gear when accelerating past 4k rpm, i hear a clicking noise in the engine and i can feel the clicking on the gas pedal.....during clicking, my boost reads 11 psi...could it be detonation? i dont think 11 psi is too much of a spike...the car is stock...thanks for all your help!

 

wow, didnt expect to drag up something so old using search.

Anyhow i have the exact same problem. I wonder if this guy every sorted it?

 

I have no idea what kind of clicking noise would sound around that RPM range... need more specification.

Jeremy

 

Is it a constant ticking or just a couple ticks then gone? elaborate

 

I had the same problem in my FC before. For some reason I don't think it's detonation as the car never stumbled or died. For some reason I think it was something to do with my sway bar endlinks or something. Because the ticking either comes back or goes away whenever I mess around with my sway bars.

 

Be more descriptive - is the car pulling normally ? Is it backfiring ? Is it doing something else besides ticking... ?

How's your fuel filter btw. ?

It doesnt matter what boost you're at if you can't supply enough fuel (read: dirty fuel filter or clogged injectors)

 

I had the same syptoms. I changed the spark plugs and wires and that solved the clicking. You should really try that.

 

It may have been a gap in one of the wires and the sound was the spark jumping the gap, but I'm not sure why it would only be noticable in a certain RPM range, unless the engine was torqueing in the mounts just enough to cause a separation... interesting...

 

i recommend this too. my first motor was having a clicking noise under hard acceleration. found out it was small detonations, rear apex seal crack. still rand, never died, still boosted, but compression was low. replaced spark plugs and wires, went away, no more detonation, no more clicking noise.

remember tho, other things may be causing the clicking, just make sure its not detonation.

chris

 

Well theres no change in performance, and it only normally happens after the car has warmed up fully (or maybe thats only because i push it harder when its warmed up)

Its only a few clicks then gone. But i do feel it through the gas pedal sometimes, i just installed the pfc, and when this "clicking" noise happens the lamp flashes on the dash, so it could be detonation?? (but wouldnt this be some serious engine blowing detonation for me to actually FEEL it throught the gas pedal??) and this has happened a lot of times so if it was that i would of thought my engine would of gone by now.

I think i read somewhere that the pfc lamp flashed when one of the spark plug cables wasnt connected properly and the spark was jumping across a gap?? If my plugs or cables were old could it be the spark im hearing? Sounds dumb i know, but im grasping at straws here.

 

Ok bringing back a reaaaaally old thread here but I am experiencing the same thing.

I have an '86 NA gxl. Just had the engine rebuilt and everything has been running great. Noticed towards the end of my long drive from Kansas to Texas that when I depress the accelerator, I get a few quick clicks / rattling sounds, almost as if something is tumbling around. Then it stops. It's only when I first begin accelerate, does not happen for more than a few seconds or when holding constant speed. Does not seem to be affecting performance in the least, or related to any specific rpm range, though it seems to happen most often at higher speeds, accelerating from 70-80 etc. The next day I drove the car very hard and didn't notice a thing. Day after that drove from Austin to El Paso and the clicking came back about 300 miles into the drive, but then seemed to go away again and didn't come back for the remainder of the trip. Very confused. Rotary Doctor said spark plugs were fine when it was at his shop for rebuild. Any ideas??

 

For the past three years my FD has had a very light vibration at idle, in gear (auto) when stopped at the lights. Could never find it.

I had this clicking phenomena as well lately, especially after washing the engine bay.

Two days ago after washing the car and changing the oil, it got dark outside. I had the car idling and I could hear the clicking. I looked in the engine bay and finally found the problem. The spark plug boot closest to the front of the car (T1 if I remember the order correctly) had a hole in the 90 degree blue part of the boot that pushes onto the coil pack. Through the hole, in the dark, I could see a fat blue spark arcing onto the UIM.

It was not visible during daylight, but at night you can find sparks arcing out of plug wires much better. It has run like this probably since I got the car and has not hurt anything.

By sheer coincidence, I was about to pull the UIM off the car the very next day to actually change to new plug wires. I had the new set ready to go. Now its all fixed up, it idles very smoothly and no further ticking

BTW, when I pulled the UIM off last Sunday, the part of the UIM that the plug wire had been arcing onto, had a really nice big lump of deposited carbon built up on it. Probably 3 or 4 years worth... :p

 

Glad you found a fix! Don't think we were having the same problem though. I feel like if mine was spark plug related it would happen all the time, or at least more frequently. For me it only seems to come on after VERY extended periods of driving. And it's never on idle, it's literally only during the first few seconds of acceleration. And like I said for some reason it went away on it's own after another hundred miles or so.

Not sure if I'll ever hear it again seeing as I don't plan on taking the car on any more 300mi + trips. Hopefully I don't, but still I am curious about it and hope it's not the sign of something more serious (though I doubt it because the car runs great)