is this normal? D:

after it warms up it sounds/runs fine.

 

It's never normal for a na engine to sound like a a diesel. You should have your oil pressure checked.

 

heh my engine sounded like that when my water pump was taking a ****

 

So did mine but it made the noise all the time. A horrible knocking... I initialy thought I had rod knock.

 

if the oil pressure was bad, wouldn't the check engine light come on?
the only lights that are on are, abs,brake, and airbag.

other than that no lights come on while driving. when the key is right before starting everything comes on.

 

An oil pressure problem would restrict oil flow to the top of the engine, especialy on a cold start after it's all drained to the pan. So the top of the engine (cams, valves, lifters) would be noisy until after a few seconds when pressure finaly builds up. If pressure gets bad enough there is an oil pressure warning light. The problem is that by the time that light comes on, some heavy damage may have already taken place.

You could see with an oil pressure gauge how fast pressure builds up. If it were slow to build pressure I'd look into replacing the oil pickup tube/screen and maybe the pump. If not then one of your cam chain tensioners might have slack in it causing the noise until oil gets pumped up there to help silence it.

 

i'll have to check those out. the sound seems to be coming from right underneath the intake manifold. so def.not water pump. correct?


i was curious and looked at my air filter, took it out, and could see little to no light through it :s was from 2005. i'll have to tear into it one of these days.

 

i changed the air filter, sound seems to have almost vanished, a lot better throttle response, and its a **** load faster than before. haha

 

yeah a 5 year old air filter would have to be pretty nasty. probably doesn't have anything to do with the start up sound though.

 

it just sounds a lot more like a gasoline engine, than a diesel lol

would an oil change do anything? where it says my trip miles when i start the engine up it flashes oil, and has since the day i bought it about 3 months ago, the guy said that he had just changed the oil a week before that, but it didn't seem to go away, and when i got it home i checked the level and was almost a quart low. so i added another quart of mobile 1 full synthetic like the guy said he had been using.

i'll try that and see if it makes a difference. i want to try the little maintenance things and feel it out before i go tearing valve covers off looking at cam chain tensioners, or messing with oil lines.

maybe i should get a pillar pod with an oil pressure gauge?