hey, i have 2 things i need to ask about my 97 Trans Am. I have had the car about 27 days, which means the warrenty or lemon law deal ends on monday! so i need to figure out if im gonna have to take it back or not.
first and most scary/important: there is a horrible grinding sort of noise coming from somewhere under the hood, i think on the right side, not sure. but it only comes when i reach 2000 rpms when you go a lil heavy or WOT on the gas. then it usually goes away around 2300, maybe 2500 tops. but its so repetitive, i can do it every time. It does it in every gear too. Another thing that could be effecting this or could be the same problem is, the clutch is almost gone and has about half an inch of play left. And it chatters when going into first almost every time when i take off around 1000-1700 rmps. If i go into first at higher rpms it barely makes the chattering noise. And i tried launching it yesterday at around 3500 and there was no chatter at all. i have had 3 guys drive the car to see if they know what the problem was. just no i had my friend with a 94 z28 drive it to see if he knew, but he doesnt either. The car has also misfired a couple times at basically red line, but never below like 5500 rpms. Do you think it could be the Opti?

Next problem, im not as concerned about, the guy that looked at it yesterday noticed 2 connectors that werent going anywhere right near below the headers. There was this black little box that says, 201 Delco Reddy on it and the connector that was disconnected and had a cap on it, fitted perfectly into the box, so i actually plugged that in today and no difference. there was another lil wire coming out of the box, that was sort of attatched to one of the 3 holes in the box with electrical tape. Well we took pictures of it last night, but the guy hasnt sent me them yet so i'll post them as soon as i get them in here, maybe tonite.

Another thing that could be related is that the car has 2 SES codes: PO171:System (adaptive fuel) too lean (bank 1)
and PO174:System (adaptive fuel) too lean (bank 2)

For the code i was with the dealers mechanic and he told me to give it a tune up, fuel filter, sparks and wires. I did the fuel filter last friday, used Valvaline Fuel injector cleaner. I got my msd 8.5 superconductor wires today and the spark plugs (ngk 55's) should be coming tomorow, my mechanic and me are gonna be replacing them tomorow evening, hopefully they'll come by then.

Sorry about how long this post is, i just need advice more than ever before in my life, i dont want to end up having to rebuild my engine/trans
Thanx alot for looking.
Brenton

 

chatter is common, Honda auto tranny fluid helps. Next the missfire is probably the coil. High RPM miss is a symptom. Last you defined your grinding problem. You probably have minimal pad surface left.

O yea, and its a PITA to do but do the plugs yourself, you're gonna get raped.....

 

lol yea my mechanic is good and he told me he'd do it for 50 bucks so i'd rather just do it that way then try to spend 2318 hours i dont have.

anyways, if the code doesnt go away after i do the sparks and wires then im takin it back to the dealer and i made an agreement with the guy there that he would fix whatever is makin the code after i get the car serviced.
do you think any of the things i posted before are related to the sytem being lean.

and the grinding sound, its not coming from where the clutch is, thats the weird thing, but i think it could be clutch related because the clutch has been wearing out more and more, i can feel it. and when i first bought the car about a month ago, none of these noises were there, so i know they are gettin progressively worse...

 

well, I meant to post earlier that you may also have bad O2's. That could cause the lean condition. Also a leak could do it.

50 bucks.... Obviously he has never done them before and if he has more power to him. He may not be so nice to you afterwards