I went for a short drive yesterday (20 mins), and hit lift a couple of times. After the second time, there was a constant tapping sound from the engine. The tapping is exactly in tune with the engine (high revs = faster tapping). When I got home I checked under the hood and the sound appears to be coming from the engine (valves, top of engine??), not VSV (I can hear that clicking, but it's not nearly as loud as this constant tapping. I listened by the belts on the left side of the engine bay and didn't think the sound came from there.
The sound kind of reminds me of those older Subaru engines almost like a diesel engine.
After turning the car off, I tried yanking on one of the belts to see if it was the belt tensioner, and heard nothing.
Left the car for a few hours then went for another drive, and the tapping sound was still there, constant, from the moment the car is started until the car is turned off.
Any mods? Valve float or piston slap or general valve clatter? Any loss of power? Any chance you misshifted and over revved, if so, it is probably bent valves. What oil and filter and how often do you change the oil? Posting a video may help, but it appears to be very serious.
Any mods? Valve float or piston slap or general valve clatter? Any loss of power? Any chance you misshifted and over revved, if so, it is probably bent valves. What oil and filter and how often do you change the oil? Posting a video may help, but it appears to be very serious.
No mods on the engine. It sounds like loud valve chatter to me, not sure what valve float or piston slap sounds like. No misshifting when it happened, and I didn't hit the rev-limiter. I change my oil every 5000-8000KM, using mobil-1 synthetic since I bought the car at 60KM.
No CEL, the car seems to have no loss of power that I can tell, but I haven't tried to rev above ~4000RPM since this happened. Haven't really driven it much at all since this happened.
The sound almost reminds me of an air-cooled VW engine, but not nearly that loud, but seems similar.
Without going so far to remove the valvecover to take a peek - could try removing the two OCV filters and see if they are gummed up with deposits.
If those filters are event partially plugged up - could explain that metallic tapping/ticking noise. One is by the alternator, the other is closest to the brake master cylinder. Could also be excessively worn lift bolts - though not known to be a problem on the Matrix, like the earlier Celica GT-S 2ZZ-GE, there is still a chance that excessive wear on the bolt will cause lift to be intermittent or fail altogether. The precursor for some owners was excessive valvetrain rattling before the bolts failed.
There are pretty decent write-ups on www.NewCelica.org - on those OCV filters and lift bolt replacement.
Also could hurt to pull the sparkplugs and give them a good read. If something is "off" - it will definitely show up on the plugs.
Since noise seems to be keyed to engine RPM - might want to double check the oil pump. Even though your Matrix has relatively low mileage, it is not outside the possibility that the oil pump rotor has developed cracks. Double check the motor oil, verify that the oil filter didn't drop into full bypass mode.
On one of my other cars, developed some serious valvetrain noise. Turned out it was a filter that went into full bypass - oil filter sounded like a coffee can with lemon inside - filter assembly came detached from the can and didn't filter anything. Replaced with a different filter - no more noise.
I updated my original post with a video which has the engine sound.
Forgot to mention that I changed the engine oil and filter right after I got home (after it originally started). The engine sounded was the same after the oil/filter change.
If a valve was sucked in, it would destroy the piston.
Inspect your exhaust manifold and gasket for breaches or cracks.
Then pull the valve cover. You can then check clearances and timing belt.
Here's an update...
I haven't had any time to look into the noise in more detail. The car has been driven very lightly for the past week. Two days ago, morning drive (10 mins) noise was still there. Afternoon drive, as soon as the car was started, no noise. No noise since then after a couple more light drives.
So...now what? Do I take the chance and see if lift will engage? Drive it hard to see if anything is wrong?
Still no CEL from before/during/after noise.
Took the car for a longer drive yesterday. Basically, there is no lift. Hit 6200rpm and there's slightly more engine noise, maybe a 10% "boost"...but basically no normal lift "Hit". No CEL.
I am thinking either this could be OCV lift filter clogged, or lift bolt(s) broken. Maybe a lift-bolt broke, and was loose in the engine causing tapping, then finally found it's way to the oil pan?
If I have time next weekend I'll open the valve cover and plan on replacing the lift bolts.
Sounds like you have "weak" lift, assuming that there was a changeover at that point - pretty much points to broken lift bolts as the main culprit. If those look OK, then off to the OCV valve and the OCV filter.
Pull the valvecover ASAP. You'll need to do that anyways to get at the lift bolts, but also give you a good idea of how the cams/rockers look. If you see excessive cam wear (shiny spots) or see obviously broken rocker arms (look for missing chunks of metal, might have to feel around the rocker if possible.)
Possible that the broken bit of bolt made its way to the sump - but I'd think you'd run into a bent valve first with all that metal up there. But weirder stuff have happened before - might have gotten lucky and the broken bolt just danced around up there and eventually made its way to the oil pan.
I'm assuming that you have already checked the electrical connections to the OCV solenoids - on the 2ZZ-GE, there are two of them. One close to the alternator, the other behind the throttlebody. Even if they were found to be OK, probably still a good idea to double check their filters - just in case.
I found this thread, and seeing it was fairly recent... and I had the exact same noise on my Corolla T-Sport that has a 2ZZ-GE too.
It could be something else, and I hope that it is, as in my case it cost me four grand to fix the problem. My engine as completely knackered, I had to get an entirely new block (not head) for it. I've got a photo at home somewhere of the damage, and I want to say that the memory that sticks is that the big end bearings had gone.
I took it to an independent garage I trusted first and their exact words were "take it to a dealer, and take it there slowly, you could throw something through the head"
I thought I would warn, and I hope you are more lucky than myself!
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Constant tapping sound from 2ZZGE
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