The ticking sounds like an exhaust leak. It increases or decreases with engine rpm. It sounds like a typical exhaust leak where one tunnel of a manifold is leaking where it connects to the head. If your talking about the geometry of the valve train, the valves are centered over the combustion chamber and as it is a single cam the rocker arms and pushrods are very long. The lifters are in a frame thats hold 4 per frame. 2 per side and different from front to rear.
How is that different from an engine that uses 4 valves per cylinder (other than the placement of the valves), and why would it cause a tic? In other words, how does what you’ve described cause the lifters to act differently enough to form an audible tic?
I had written a nice post explaining what it looked like and the board timed out. If you have access to a fax pm me with the number and I’ll fax you diagrams. It’s a pretty bizarre set up as far as valve trains go. I can’t e-mail from a chrysler website.
But in the mean time you should take it to a dealer. It doesn’t sound like you have a bunch of miles on it. If it’s still under warranty they shouldn’t charge you to look at it. For your own peace of mind.
Two of the three mechanics I speak of have been Dodge dealers. :mad:
PM with fax number sent.
I dunno the specifics, but in ages past, cats were just bolted on afterthoughts, now however, they design the cars knowing that it’ll have a cat on it. I doubt that you’d have to worry about the engine suddenly exploding through the hood, but you’d probably be at risk for shortening the life of some of the components involved with the exhaust.
Something to do with back-pressure, maybe? It still has the cats, though.
The joints in an exhaust system can cause ticking noises that are worse when cold, but don’t necessarily go away when warmed up. If the aftermarket system is fitting the stock pipes perfectly, do be surprised to hear ticking.
I posted earlier, so it should have dawned on me, but my Jetta is on it’s third exhaust system and there is a ticking sound from the joint behind the cat. More than one person has asked told me I have some valve taps.
Now, when I first heard the noise I thought the same thing. We checked the clamp in the shop and the pipes, and we’ll be damned if the noise won’t quit. The two pipes just don’t seem to like each other. The Jetta has 130,00 miles and this is the third exhaust. It is not a ricer exhaust, but is higher performance. Just doesn’t have the ricer-style muffler.
The second exhaust was more like OEM. This current one is less resrictive, but the area where the pipes meet has a ticking noise and it smooths out under load. At idle and light accel, it screams ‘valves’.
Go figure.
I had my doubts until you said, "Also, it’s more of a “pfft” than a “ting”. If the noise has an F or an S in it, something’s blowing or sucking.
Your cold air intake probably reaches between bodywork and the engine, so there’s bound to be some jiggling around. Have you tried nudging parts of that assembly with the engine running, to see if the noise changes? Mind the moving parts and the plug wires, now. :eek:
It seems way louder than I’d imagine an intake leak to be, but I’ll fiddle around with this when I’m under the hook this weekend. Thanks.
If I remember correctly, you will have exhaust recirculation through the intake manifold. That means there are exhaust passages in the manifold that can leak and cause the “fwap” you hear. Either a bad intake gasket or a cracked manifold or an EGR valve problem. Start there.