Excellent info, thank you. I will run it by him. I thought with piston slap you would definitely see some low compression and oil consumption if it was bad to the point of making noise?
On a related note, he showed me the oil pan. It had metal sludge on the bottom, fine flakes of metal mixed with the oil that formed a mud like substance, not much, but it was there. Since we could not see 7 and 8 with the subframe blocking the way he wants to pull the engine up and measure those bearings just to make sure.
In relation to the fuel pressure regulator I did keep driving the car after it began to bog down as it was progressively getting worse. I drove it until it completely stalled out on me, so am not sure what damage I did myself by driving it. Basically it had a light occasional tapping, then this happened and it stalled out, and after the fuel pressure was fixed and the car started up it had the klacking. I'm not sure how often it was cranked by my indie though during diagnosis and repair.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Robert Squires
* spinedoc, you said ". . my first impression was piston slap, BUT there is no oil consumption and good compression." Piston slap doesn't usually result in noticeable oil consumption or noticeable compression loss. That's one reason piston slap is so difficult to pinpoint! If the noise isn't that bothersome (i.e. you can hear the radio over the noise), piston slap can be driven a long time. Another is location. You can usually rule out the bottom-end as the noise source, but it's unclear between mid-engine and upper-end.
* The light tapping for 2 years, well before replacing the fuel pressure regulator, was also before so much fuel was injected that the engine wouldn't even run. Did the loud "klacking" come after the fuel dump that stopped the engine? Then again, how much was the engine cranked before the pressure regulator was diagnosed ( ". . gas that flooded the oil. .. )? If it was cranked quite a bit, there's your fuel wash.
* Fuel wash, from a defective pressure regulator or stuck injector and usually while the engine is being cranked (and not running), is probably the most common cause, on start-up, of piston and cylinder scoring (the excessive cylinder-to-piston skirt clearance then leads to the noise called piston slap). Find a bore scope and look for cylinder damage (through the spark plug holes, just moving each piston, sequentially, to BDC) before doing any more serious work.
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