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So, ever since I did my second tranny fluid drain and refill, I have been getting this strange and obnoxious whine from my car. I can't tell whether or not it's an intake leak, because when I rev my car in park, the noise doesn't come back. However, when driving around, there's an extremely high pitched whining noise when accelerating and slowing down. I used Honda Z1 when doing my tranny fluid. I am currently uploading a video to Youtube, so whenever it finishes, I'll add it to this post. The dipstick seems to be showing that the fluid is within spec, too. I don't know what else to check.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

Edit: Video is live.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRr99DVY0pI (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRr99DVY0pI" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)

Not sure if the quality is good enough to be able to hear the noise. Edit2: Watch the video in HQ and you can hear it better.

I can't really here the noise, I had a tranny go, and there was no noise I don't know if that makes you feel better or not.

Your car is Auto right? Why does it now shift into 3rd at 4000rpm? My tranny shifts between 2500-3500 regularly depending on which gear. Are you manually shift or no?

I can hear the whine and it sounds rather high pitched. How many miles on the car?

I am about to break 48k miles on it. It's an auto; I was just pushing it hard so that you could hear the whine better. It is very high pitched, and it makes me worry, lol.

maybe is the new belt you put on? idk i cant really hear anything. did you check your AT fluid levels?

Your still under warranty at 48k no? Let honda check it out.

I can't hear shit, anywho, does the pitch change, does it change with engine speed or car speed? You can also find a nice desterted and stright road, get her up to speed (say 25-35), put her in neutral and shut off the engine(be sure to bring the key back one notch to on after the engine stops so you can stear) and let her coast.

If you listen very closely at :20 and at :50 in between my words you can hear a very high pitched ringing/whining.. Wow I talked way too much in the video, lol. The noise seems to change with engine speed... whenever I'm at higher RPMs, it gets louder. So, when I turn off the engine, should I be listening to see if the whining is still there while coasting?

Yup, we are trying to isolate engine noise vs tranny/drive line noise.

Weird... it's not even making the noise at all today. I did what you said, and the tranny was pretty quiet. Whenever it does come back though, I'll make sure to test it with the above method again.

maybe your car got supercharger without you knowing it? lol

Update: the sound came back today on my way home, so I turned off the engine and let the car coast down my street, and the sound immediately went away, even right after I put the car in neutral. So that crosses out transmission. My next suspicion would be that ungodly contraption of hosing for the blow-by ventilation or whatever that goes to the intake tube. I'm going to check for any leaks there and see what's up. I revved the car in park, and the sound didn't even come back though, so that was kind of weird. Hopefully it's just an intake leak.

I know on RWD cars that could mean a wheel bearing or axle but not sure if that same logic would cross over on a FWD car.

It would but he would've heard it when he shut the car off and coasted. Fingers are pointing at the pullies/ belt/ tensioner. I'd poke around in that area Jeff.

What exactly could I diagnose? I just recently put on the 7.25" belt to fix the tensioner slap problem, and the tensioner indicator is now inside the long skinny rectangle. I'm not entirely sure what I could do to figure out the problem, lol. It also doesn't help that this sound appears only when it feels like it.

It may be that the bearing in the tensioner pulley is starting to fail as a result of the slap. Those are hard to diagnose but from what you described and recent changes, I'm thinking it's that. I've actually had one seize on me in my DA. It's not fun when it happens in the middle of US1 in the keys.

Do you think I should take off the belt and see how the tensioner pulley moves? I guess if it moves freely, it's still fine, but if it moves roughly, it's about to fail, right?

Sure. Give that a go. Matter of fact, check all your pullies. See if any of them are a little rough. Another thing you could try is to get a can of WD40 and try to hit the backside of the pullies when they start making noise and see if that bit of lube kills the noise. It's a quick easy diagnosis and may reveal the problem.

+1

Just do a sanity check under the hood. If you don't find anything out of place I would take it to Honda and see what they can find. It's worth paying a little for a tech to check it out, IMHO.

Okay, tomorrow after school I am going to be taking the belt off and checking all the pulleys. Also, here's an update on the occurrences of the sound. Since my last post stating that the noise came back, it has stayed around all day today. The last time I drove it with the sound still there was at 4:00. However, tonight when I drove home (like 15 minutes ago), the sound disappeared. Here's the weird thing though. As I was driving down my neighborhood, I could hear the whining slowly coming back, but not as loud as it used to be.

Just so you guys know, here is the pic I took of my tensioner indicator back when I just installed the new belt:

(http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/1903/dsc0739c.jpg)

The belt has stretched out a little more, and is now pretty much right in the middle of that long skinny rectangle.

At this point I am pretty much crossing out the possibility that it's an intake leak, mainly because of one thing. If it was a leak, then I should be hearing it whenever I rev at all, regardless of any other circumstances. Since I tried revving the car in park, and there was no sound, I can only assume that it's something else and not the intake.

Oh and one more thing. If I did end up taking it to Honda, what would they do when they saw that my car is modded out the ass? Can they legally do anything, or do they just have to live with it?

I wouldn't necessarily say your car is modded out the ass but they may try not honoring any powertrain warranties if the pullies caused the noise. Try what I'm telling you with the wd40. Last time I heard what you were describing it was the power steering pump (not this car). Systematically spray each pulley when you get the noise to see if its some form of a lubrication issue. I'll guarantee you one of your pullies is causing the squeal. More than likely the tensioner is your culprit. Start there with your spray.

You're right. Tim's car is modded out the ass, lol. I'll definitely do the WD-40 tomorrow as well, thanks for the tip.

That's what I'm here for.

Just as a side note... does it matter if anti-seize was never put on the alternator pulley? Isn't the stuff just for if you want to take the pulley back off? I don't see myself taking anything off my car for a long time lol. The shop put ant-seize on the crank and P/S pulley, but forgot to do the alternator. :\

Not sure. I haven't replaced my pullies so I couldn't tell you. I don't see how anti-seize or lack of it would be your issue though.

Alright, so I think the WD-40 trick did the job. The noise was completely gone during my test run. I also took the serpentine belt off, and rotated the auto-tensioner, power steering, and alternator pulleys. They all spun freely with no hesitation. I couldn't reach any of the other pulleys. The auto-tensioner could be spun, and would keep spinning for about 3 seconds. I don't think there is a problem at all with it. It still doesn't explain why that whining noise was like that though. I sprayed WD-40 on the three pulleys I previously mentioned.

I'll keep everyone updated on what goes on.

SHIT!  I read this whole damn thread cause I thought it was talking about Jeremy!

Damnit, the sound came back tonight... I'm clueless now.

Spray it again and see if it goes away. WD40 is not a perm. solution something is wrong with one of the items you sprayed.

Yeah. Don't spray them all at once. The wd40 was to try and find the culprit. Say you had sprayed the tensioner while the engine was turning and making noise, then it stopped after the spray, that would be the source of the noise.

Now I am utterly confused. Today after washing my car, I turned it on to put it back in the garage. Now the whining can be heard while in park, and you can hear it when revving in park as well. It didn't do that before. So, I parked the car on the driveway, and sprayed WD-40 on only the tensioner pulley. Started the car back up, still there. Sprayed WD-40 on the P/S pulley, same thing. Sprayed some on the alternator pulley, same thing. The whine never went away. It seems like it's gotten louder.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4qpBZiJZWM (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4qpBZiJZWM" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)

Fucking camcorder barely recorded the whine. You can hear it the most at 2500-3000RPM on the video.

I can't hear it at all...why don't you take video with the hood open from the front of the car???

You can't even hear the whine if you stand in front of the car. You can only hear it when inside with the doors closed.

I think it's time to blow up your car Jeff.

I took my passenger front wheel off today and listened to the crank pulley while having my sister rev the car... nothing. I tried listening along the exhaust piping... nothing. Right now I'm like what in the fuck...

HAHA That's funny!  

Like Tim said above:

Aha! I put the OEM serpentine belt back on today, and the noise went away! Although that doesn't explain why I couldn't hear the noise when standing in front of the engine bay. What would this whining noise indicate anyways? That the belt is too tight? I guess now I've got to return this belt and look for a 7.50" one.

What other brands should I be looking at? Neither Gates nor Goodyear carry a 70.50" belt.

Edit: I found a Dayco brand (part # 5070705); it is 63/64" wide, 70.50" long, and has 7 ribs. That looks like the one I would need. But is Dayco a trustworthy brand?

Edit2: I just compared the auto tensioner spec from Bill's car with mine, and mine is very close to his when I had the 70.25" belt.

My car with 70.25" belt (it's to the right just a hair more, it's stretched some)
(http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/1903/dsc0739c.jpg)
Bill's car with OEM everything
(http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/3710/img7539c.jpg)

Theoretically then the 70.25" that I already have should be the ideal solution... why would it be making such a noise? Is it possible that there's a certain rotation that the belt needs to go? I noticed that the Gatorback belt has like angled indents in the ribs, which could face either direction depending on which way you put the belt on.

 

Oh my god, what the fuck. I am going to choke someone. On my way home just now, the fucking whine came back. I'm still on the OEM belt too. The only other recent thing I've changed to the car is added an oil catch can. I know it's working because the view tube has gotten darker in color. Could the air traveling through the catch can cause some sort of whistle while it passes through?

does your car have some kind of unknown supercharger?

Yes.

Does the tube looked collapsed at all?????

The tube looks perfectly fine, but I'll check again today while I put my gatorback belt back on.

I think we need a new title for this thread...

"ECM Diagnosis Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Supercharger"

If you don't do it Jeff, I will. lol

hahahha GREAT TITLE!!!

Very Funny!

Maybe you've got some squirrels humping under the hood and whenever you make a left turn their ass scrapes along the accessory belt, there I solved your noise issue. No go get your shotgun and we'll be eatin squirrel tonight!

I knew you'd do it Jeff! Nice!

Just as a small update... the noise hasn't come back for awhile now. The last thing I did was put the OEM belt back on, then the whining came back, so I put the Gatorback belt back on, but in the opposite direction of what I had it before. Since then, I haven't heard the noise at all. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, lol.

That's good to hear Jeff.

Thanks. Are the Gatorback belts supposed to be directional? There's no notation of whether or not they are, so I just assumed that they aren't. The ribs on the belt look as though that they should be directional, though. It's a pretty intricate design that Goodyear has there. Makes me wonder since the noise hasn't come back after flipping the belt around.

I've never experienced anything like that with any of the gatorback belts.  I do not believe they are directional.

So, since that the whining went away and hasn't come back, and coincidentally my auto tensioner soon after started making noises, I'm dubbing the source of this problem to the auto tensioner. This thread can probably be deleted or locked since Dave's thread is a lot more relevant, and has better information.

Thanks for the help.

No need for that. We can just let this thread go dead. At the point that you started this thread, none of us had any idea what the problem was and it slowly got figured out. Besides, its a funny thread title.