WR1 Owners Club

Hi all, I filled up with a new tank of Shell vPower on Wednesday night as I had a 60 mile round trip today on the M25 so just pottering along ~50-70mph without ever using full throttle. Near home I have a short burst of dual carriageway so opened the car up and as it came on boost there was a tapping/clicking noise sounding like it was coming from behind the instruments, I could also feel it through the steering wheel. I backed off and brought the car on boost again and as it went into positive boost the clicking/tapping again started getting much more rapid as the boost increased (only tried for <1-2 seconds to confirm).

The tapping/clicking sounds like it is coming from the bulkhead behind the dash area and it's odd that I could certainly feel it through the steering - my initial thoughts were of driveshaft/diff issues but I am now wondering if it could be detonation as the car did feel like it was surging/not pulling cleanly as it came on boost.

A local garage are going to give the front end a going over tomorrow to check driveshafts/joints etc but I obviously don't want to be trying to generate the noise again if it is a really poor batch of fuel causing problems...

Any thoughts/advice?

Also worth mentioning there are no odd noises when off boost or idling and I can go from lock to lock without any knocks/clonks, I only seem to get this tapping/clicking when in positive boost...

No idea what that could be but im none mechanical, ideally you need to get the car up to Adam at Autotecnica or Alyn at AS Performance to take a look at it.

On a straight road it may be worth putting the dccd in manual and testing on boost with dccd fully locked and fully open to see if it happens no matter what the diff setting. i assume this tests the diff.

What happens when it starts tapping and you put the clutch in? does it stop?

does it do it on half throttle and full throttle?

Good luck finding the cause

I dont suppose you saw a cloud of smoke coming out of the back ?

Good idea with changing the diff settings, I will give that a go. It taps whether on half or full throttle provided I have positive boost (so stops if the clutch is in - I couldn't replicate it sitting static and revving) but the harder you press/the more boost there is the more it taps.

It's one of those things that I am nervous about testing as I obviously don't want to cause any damage if at all possible. At least the guys looking at it tomorrow are performance Ford ST/RS specialists just around the corner from me so should know a bit more than the average mechanic and can hopefully pinpoint if it is engine/drivetrain related. I'm tempted to ask for a fuel tank drain and then will refill somewhere else to see if that helps...

marchar wrote:I dont suppose you saw a cloud of smoke coming out of the back ?

Not that I noticed but to be honest I wasn't looking for it... Something else I will keep an eye out for.

I had a dodgy batch of v power in my evo, ran like a sack of shite, drained the tank and have used tescos 99 ever since in all my cars

W1 KRB wrote:I had a dodgy batch of v power in my evo, ran like a sack of shite, drained the tank and have used tescos 99 ever since in all my cars

Interesting to hear, thanks. The Shell garage I used is a smaller station on the outskirts of St Albans and I remember thinking the vPower price was high - 144.9 compared to Tesco 99 locally which is normally around 140.9. Could be an old batch as I understand the octane level degrades over time...

Also experienced that too, a couple of months ago, it only comes out at weekends had half a tank of fuel in it while we got our new mini cooper works so sat in garage for 5 weeks, ran very lumpy when it came out, jerky, hesitant on full throttle etc, just drove till the reserve came on and fill up £30 a time now

That was in my WR1 too

Well I'm glad to report back that my paranoia was well and truly unfounded!

The source of the problem was a failed weld on a heat shield which under power was moving to just touch one of the UJs on the steering column resulting in the notchy clonk I could feel at certain steering angles. The ticking noise was the shield vibrating as the engine shifted slightly under power.So phew, all is good again after a local garage bent and re-welded the shield back out of the way. Normal service resumed!

Same thing happened to mine, I thought the rack was on the blink. Turned out the heat shield had fell off and was rubbing the UJ. It only did it when pulling away and steering at the same time.

Thanks for this info, it's always good to know these annoying faults that cause major headaches