jdmlude_dude

I know know if this is the official death of my h22 or not, but I am starting to get worried. THis is kind of a long story but I want you all to know the FULL history of this motor.
Let me start from the top....
I bought the jdm h22 back in early 2003. The motor ran very nice but had some pretty nasty valve ticking. I adjusted the ticking but the sound didnt really go away. The motor ran really good and strong but missed at idle. Summer of 2005 i bent about 4 valves. I pulled the head and had the head rebuilt with ALL skunk2 valvetrain and JUN valve guides. I had the head ported and polished and fully cleaned. I also got new valve seats and a 3 angle valve job. So the head was built and basically brand new. The machinist who did all my work said that i had multiple broken valve guides(that is why i put JUN ones in). He said that they were broken before I bent the valves and he noticed that there were about 3 valves that had also been bent before I bent any. So that explains the valve noise and miss that i had...or would it!?

While the head was off, i inspected the pistons and cylinder walls for any sort of damage. The pistons look fine as well as pretty clean. The walls had 0 glazing or scratches. So all was well with the bottom end.

The head was put back on with a new head gasket and timing belt.

After everything was reinstalled I cranked it up and she ran like a champ. Zero noise from the engine! The car pulled and ran awesome!!!

Then...I was just checking everthing out and I pulled out a spark plug wire and it was covered in oil. My valve cover gasket was leaking oil down into the cylinder. It wasnt leaking a ton, but i definatly kept it in mind until i got my new gasket kit from honda. About this time i began to notice this rattle like sound when I would shift at very high rpm's like 7800. I didnt pay much attention to it because that is the only time it would do it and it only lasted like a fraction of a second. But a few weeks later it began to get noticable at lower rpms. Then eventually it started doing it about 3k to 6k. So at that time i was freaking out. I could stay under 3k and it wouldnt make this rattle sound. At idle the motor began to idle very rough. I thought it was the timing belt popping the cover so I went to my friends garage and pulled the valve cover to inspect the timing belt. When i pulled off the crank pulley and the cover i noticed that the balancer shaft tensioner was freakin loose and the balancer shaft belt was barely on. So i fixed it all back thinking that was the problem and as well fixed my oil leak with the valve cover gasket.

When i cranked it back up, the sound was still there coming from the timing belt side. Once i fixed the balancer shaft i did notice that the vibrations were gone.

Now this is where i am. The loud rattle like sound happens during idle and everything. But It really only does it when it is under a load during driving. When the rpms fall after a rev, it doesnt make any sound on the way down. Just up. The sound is like something is loose and just rattling around. But it is very RPM dependant. I pulled the tranny to replace the clutch and inspected the bearings in the tranny just to make sure it wasnt a throw out or internal tranny bearing. The sound is louder when cold. Once it warms up it is pretty quiet (still clearly audible) between idle and about 3k. But after driving for a little while, it will get louder.

Here are my assumptions that are left:
Auto tensioner pulley is bad (not the tensioner itself, but the bearing in the pulley)
Balancer shaft bearings
Water pump
Oil pump
or worse to worse....spun bearing..

I need as many people to read this so that I can find an answer. I have thrown away so much time and money trying to figure this out. It has been doing this for about 3 or 4 months (about 8k miles) and only seeming to get a little worse as time goes on. I believe that whatever is causing the rattle sound doesnt have much life left. I have already checked the power steering pully and alt.

The rattle sounds like rocks in a plastic bowl. It doesnt have a ping like sound metal. It isnt a consistant like sound...it is more of a rattle.

PLEASE HELP ME

BB6racer

sounds like when my balance shafts weren't aligned right. did you line up all the marks when you fixed the balance shaft belt? is the balance shaft gear (the one towards the front of the car) bolted down nice and tight? i'm sorry i don't know what a spun bearing sounds like so i can't say if that is your problem or not. from my experiences it sounds like you belts and gears are not aligned right. hope you find the problem and save the motor!

Cottonwoodz

Take the timing cover off and run at idle, and see if its your belt slappin.

jdmlude_dude

has anyone ever had problems with the balancer shafts messing up and making anykind of noise?

Nakajima

Take the balance shaft belt off and see if the rattle goes away.
If it does, you know it's the proplem.

Boarderx192

Check to see if you have any bolts that have fallen out and are now sitting in the bottem of the timing belt cover. That could be the rocks in a plastic bowl noise since the bolts are metal and the cover is plastic. I would also take of the balance belts and see if that fixes anything

jdmlude_dude

has anyone ever heard of the balancer shafts going bad?

Clifton Santiago

sounds like it could be the catalytic converter.

prelude_h22vtec

why the hell does he have a catalytic converter in his timing cover?? anyway, bump for finding out what the noise is. mine makes that noise too. i'm gonna pull it this weekend and check it out.