Problem after rebuild: Need advice

[02RSBRP]

I recently (Friday) completed my rebuild of my 02 RS. I had a problem with my cams and the timing belt slipped. That was the reason for the rebuild. The timing belt had slipped 4 teeth and all the valve seals where gone. So needless to say, the car ran very rich and there was a butt ton of carbon build up in the combustion chamber.
The rebuild consisted of the following: New main and rod bearings (Cosworth Race bearings), Heads completly redone w/ Delta 148 grind cams, reused stock rods and pistons, new piston rings, Greddy race timing belt, new water pump, new timing belt tensioner, honned the cylinder walls, new RH cam sprocket, new 10mm oil pump (upgraded from stock 7mm pump), New head bolts, new stage 1 SPEC clutch installed, fly wheel was resurfaced, replaced both O2 sensors, and installed STi pitchstop, motor, and tranny mounts.

Started the car, but the valves where making a clickity-clackity. Seemed a little loud to me, but I know subies make noise when cold, so let it warm up, drove it around the block twice, but didn't get any better. The place that did my heads said they had set the valves, but when I finally measured them, they where way off (intake where set to something like .012 and exhaust @.014) so reset them to the stock of (I=.008 ; E=.010).

Problem 1: Out breaking the car in by excellerating, shifting through gears, making sure not to exceed 3k rpm, not driving at same speed, and using maybe 20% throttle. Everything seems to be going fine. I'm in 4th gear doing about 40mph @2500 rpm, when I let off the gas. I hear a odd noise coming from what seems the drivers side. It goes away when the car gets to about 2k rpm. It sounded kind of like a back fireing, but with a bit of mechanical sound to it also. I continued to slow down and it did it in the same RPM rang in 3rd gear. It doesn't do it in 1st or 2nd. Haven't had the car in 5th to see if it does it there. Also if I just bring RPM's up with car not moving, I don't get the sound when I let off the gas. I noticed this with about 40 miles on the rebuild.

Anybody got any idea's what this could be? Almost sounds like a driveline problem or something to do with the decceleration of the engine.

Problem 2: I can really feel the engine running inside the car when the car is idleing and when driving.

How much vibaration does the new STi mounts cause in the car?

Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Hardest part about this is the fact that I have to be moving at a decent speed for this to occur, so can't really listen to it.

* Registered users of the site do not see these ads.

[02RSBRP]

Originally Posted by 02RSBRP

Problem 1: Out breaking the car in by excellerating, shifting through gears, making sure not to exceed 3k rpm, not driving at same speed, and using maybe 20% throttle. Everything seems to be going fine. I'm in 4th gear doing about 40mph @2500 rpm, when I let off the gas. I hear a odd noise coming from what seems the drivers side. It goes away when the car gets to about 2k rpm. It sounded kind of like a back fireing, but with a bit of mechanical sound to it also. I continued to slow down and it did it in the same RPM rang in 3rd gear. It doesn't do it in 1st or 2nd. Haven't had the car in 5th to see if it does it there. Also if I just bring RPM's up with car not moving, I don't get the sound when I let off the gas. I noticed this with about 40 miles on the rebuild.

Update on the sound: Took the car driving again today to see if I could hear the sound any better. It's still doing the same thing, but the sound is more of a sandpaper sound. I had the window down, but couldn't really hear it that way. With the windows up, can hear it very well and sounds like sandpaper rubbing on something.

Anybody got any ideas what this could be?