Mytheroo
New member
Hi, I've recently moved from Seicentos (Seicenti?) to my first Stilo. It is modified in a few areas:
coil-overs, strut brace, BMC airbox, twin-pipe exhaust, apparently has been re-mapped on Shell V-power nitro, and has had the colour LCD dash fitted (from the Abarth?)
All has been fine for a couple of months engine-wise, apart from a small oil leak that I've not tracked down yet, but yesterday after a few miles on a dual carriageway I slowed for the upcoming roundabout and there was a horrible noise from the engine maybe like something was scraping
(per turn of the camshaft? or maybe something in the gearbox). I gingerly limped at low revs to the nearest carpark (100m or so) and stopped, checked for anything rubbing on the tyres first (though I think the noise was following revs rather than road-speed) but didn't see anything.
I started the car in idle and nothing seemed amiss.
I limped home (5 miles) at low revs but still going 30/40 where applicable, and I could almost imagine an extra noise but the exhaust is so loud it was hard to tell!
I was wondering if the oil leak was in fact gearbox oil so got it up on ramps and investigated what I could.
Though there was some oily stuff around the bell housing, it does seem to be coming from higher up in the middle of the engine and doesn't smell like gearbox fluid. The fluid in the gearbox appeared to be present but hard to tell as was on a slope (on ramps).
Starting it was no issue, and though not incredible smooth sounding it wasn't horrible or anything.
Listening with a 1/4" extension bar to my ear, there was a definite tapping noise at the nearside of the rear cam, as if a hydraulic lifter wasn't properly pressuring up, but unless something drastic had happened to the oil flow to that lifter during the 5min dual-carriageway run I can't really see that being the cause of the noise I heard.
The oil was still full so it wasn't that, so I wondered about the oil pressure. Assuming there would be a dashboard light that came on with ignition I went looking for it, but didn't find it. After some investigation it looks like the colour LCD dashboards only display it on the LCD screen (along with level and pressure in a segment display?), but the non-colour LCD dashboards have a light.
I'm wondering if the dashboard swap has deleted the ability to display an oil pressure warning?
I'm wondering if a real-time OBD2 reader would display it?
I'm wondering what the noise was?
I'm wondering if I try some lifter treatment in the oil, or some different oil (previous owner said it was using 5w-30 so that's what I bought), or whether I should just plan on taking the cam(s) off and checking/cleaning all the lifters?
Timing on these seems a little tricky, can it be done with normal tools if done carefully?
Is there anything else I should check for or a good test to try recreate the noise (apart from tonking it down the motorway
)?
Cheers in advance.
coil-overs, strut brace, BMC airbox, twin-pipe exhaust, apparently has been re-mapped on Shell V-power nitro, and has had the colour LCD dash fitted (from the Abarth?)
All has been fine for a couple of months engine-wise, apart from a small oil leak that I've not tracked down yet, but yesterday after a few miles on a dual carriageway I slowed for the upcoming roundabout and there was a horrible noise from the engine maybe like something was scraping
(per turn of the camshaft? or maybe something in the gearbox). I gingerly limped at low revs to the nearest carpark (100m or so) and stopped, checked for anything rubbing on the tyres first (though I think the noise was following revs rather than road-speed) but didn't see anything.
I started the car in idle and nothing seemed amiss.
I limped home (5 miles) at low revs but still going 30/40 where applicable, and I could almost imagine an extra noise but the exhaust is so loud it was hard to tell!
I was wondering if the oil leak was in fact gearbox oil so got it up on ramps and investigated what I could.
Though there was some oily stuff around the bell housing, it does seem to be coming from higher up in the middle of the engine and doesn't smell like gearbox fluid. The fluid in the gearbox appeared to be present but hard to tell as was on a slope (on ramps).
Starting it was no issue, and though not incredible smooth sounding it wasn't horrible or anything.
Listening with a 1/4" extension bar to my ear, there was a definite tapping noise at the nearside of the rear cam, as if a hydraulic lifter wasn't properly pressuring up, but unless something drastic had happened to the oil flow to that lifter during the 5min dual-carriageway run I can't really see that being the cause of the noise I heard.
The oil was still full so it wasn't that, so I wondered about the oil pressure. Assuming there would be a dashboard light that came on with ignition I went looking for it, but didn't find it. After some investigation it looks like the colour LCD dashboards only display it on the LCD screen (along with level and pressure in a segment display?), but the non-colour LCD dashboards have a light.
I'm wondering if the dashboard swap has deleted the ability to display an oil pressure warning?
I'm wondering if a real-time OBD2 reader would display it?
I'm wondering what the noise was?
I'm wondering if I try some lifter treatment in the oil, or some different oil (previous owner said it was using 5w-30 so that's what I bought), or whether I should just plan on taking the cam(s) off and checking/cleaning all the lifters?
Timing on these seems a little tricky, can it be done with normal tools if done carefully?
Is there anything else I should check for or a good test to try recreate the noise (apart from tonking it down the motorway
)?Cheers in advance.
