Well the crazy thing is that I took the alt off of my 240, which has one 'loop' for the belt vs. the two that the other one had, and the noise is *exactly* the same. So unless they both had the exact same problem, I'm thinking it's not the alternator or anything related to it. I could be wrong. And I've had the car up on the lift with the motor running, and the noise comes from the front of the motor, like it's either vacuum pump or timing chain or balancer related. I thought for sure it was the water pump, so I replaced it. Nope! That wasn't it.

So what is this 'keyway' of which you speak? The alternator pulley seems very tight/no play or wobbling that I can tell.

Well the good thing is, you appear to have no blow by. Now have you, while running cracked the injector hard lines, one at a time and see if the noise changes/goes away....the one video made it sound like an injector nailing.....squeaking belt is because if oil....you where running the engine without a valve cover, oil sprayed, dripped and ran everywhere I am sure.

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Well, I'm embarrassed to say I overlooked squeaks 101. The soap did the trick, at least for now. I'll check the HB bolts tomorrow up on the lift.

Squeaking existed pre-oil deluge, but I'm sure you're right that it contributed to the problem.

Despite its issues, it's the best (and only) $700 car I've owned :-)

So open a hard line a little to see if noise changes. Got it. Will also try that tomorrow.

Thanks all!!!

Yes, just open the hard line s bit and listen for a change, if it changes then you know something on that cylinder is to blame....then the next step would be to swap injectors around and see if the noise follows....

Seeing no blow by is good and bad...it could mean the car was very well taken care of....or it could mean it had a new or half ass rebuilt head done....which could be bad, and the noise is a result because the bottom end of the engine had issues.

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