Major or minor - help me out

[tilerpep]

Gathered a lot of useful information from these forums about my 2000 GT auto 143,000 miles I bought a few weeks ago, thanks already.

Multitude of problems at this point, try to keep it short but include relevant stuff. Bought car, smooth overall but kind of vibrated at idle. Compression check at 182-189 for all four cylinders. I decided to clean throttle body, iac, MAF. Changed coolant, thermostat, oil, filter. Cleaned the OCV oil filter (think that name is correct, behind alternator). Put in new plugs, new valve cover gasket (under valve covers looked pretty clean).

The "tractor" sound from the valves got a little worse, the idle got a lot worse, like I screwed up the IAC or MAF cleaning them.

There has been a sucking "fwit" sound even before I started when you first blip throttle, so after the above didn't help, decided to take the whole intake plenum off and see if gasket leaking. Holy *&^%! intake was full of oil. Cleaned everything and put it back together again.

Now check engine light on, and blowing lots of smoke upon start up, scared to run it long to warm up. ("Fwit" sound remained even with new intake gasket) Smoke seems more white than blue (hopeful of MAF because of that). Can I just unhook MAF to see if better?

Three thoughts - MAF bad, valves leaking/need adjustment/burned, or the major problem of the oil ring/blown engine thing.

To layer up even further, I may have switched the PCV and vent hose where they connect at the throttle body (PCV supposed to be air filter side of butterfly, vent engine side) after the first cleaning - could that have sucked all the oil down I found on the second time in?

Will another compression check tell me anything? I read the oil rings can be shot and still hold compression. All help and (cheap) places to start are appreciated. I have read lots and lots of the idle problem forums on this and other forums, but none that cover all this! : ) I like this car - help me keep it running!

[MR2Jedi]

Having the PCV hose in the wrong place can cause smoking.
You didn't mention an air filter. Did you change that?
Check for air leaks along the air intake path to throttle body. A leak along those lines will throw the A/F ratio off. That could cause a rough idle and the sound you describe.

[tilerpep]

I think I found the vacuum leak - the intake manifold itself appears to be broken open slightly on the throttle body side. The flat seam around the small feedout to the bottom of the air filter box seems wider than the rest. Will JB Weld or something similar bond with this plastic? Need about four inch repair apparently.

I do have a new air filter in. Will work on this manifold lead and see how much of the other stuff gets corrected and will post.

[tilerpep]

hmmm. I used some sealer to cover what looked like an open seam in the intake manifold. No change in the fwoop sound when you give it throttle. However, it is running better after resetting computer. Corrected the hoses to vent in front of butterfly, pcv engine side, and smoke has subsided. Is the airy noise just the intake diong its job?

[MR2Jedi]

Originally Posted by tilerpep

hmmm. I used some sealer to cover what looked like an open seam in the intake manifold. No change in the fwoop sound when you give it throttle. However, it is running better after resetting computer. Corrected the hoses to vent in front of butterfly, pcv engine side, and smoke has subsided. Is the airy noise just the intake diong its job?

Could be. Are you using the stock air filter and box or an after market filter?
It's hard to diagnose sounds over the internet.

[tilerpep]

Yea, the noises are hard to reproduce with a QWERTY keyboard! All stock on engine.

[allened]

Have you checked the throttle body gasket?

The tractor sound.. I had a couple things on cars which caused that.

1st - I had the wires mixed up so my 1 wire was going to the 2 cylinder and so on, it created a pretty bad noise like a tractor but the car still drove.

2nd - One of the spark plugs is not sparking or not sparking enough. Have you checked the wires or checked to see that everyone of your spark plugs are indeed sparking?

[Bitter]

1. vvti actuator can be VERY noisy on the ZZ series engines.

You Tube

You Tube

Thats normal noise on a 2ZZ-GE with about 90k miles at the time.
2. compression sounds good
3. the early 1zz's were KNOWN for oil consumption problems.

start it up and run it around and drive it and try to clear the smoke out. keep an eye on coolant level and temp.

[tilerpep]

Thanks for the video Bitter - that is definitely the sound I was worried about. So if that is "normal", I will let it clatter on.

As for the intake fwip or whoosh (depending on how much throttle you give it) I did the throttle body gasket in the first run through. It may just be a resonance/ plastic thing that I am not used to.

I drove it around and it stopped smoking, I think that was from my pcv and vent hose reversal. I am going to tackle the passenger side motor mount, rather than the engine itself next for the vibration at idle - the mount has little clear spots where the movement has wiped the dust away. Anyplace cheaper than the 120$ aftermarket and 160 dealer I have been quoted on that mount?

[Bitter]

that sound is probably normal, the 1ZZ in the celica even with the stock intake is relatively throaty when you snap the throttle open.