Strange sound I got today after driving back from my local bank. It's a 2000 S2K w/ 180k miles. Clean title but I don't know the exact maintenance history. Recently replaced clutch master/slave cylinder with the fluids. Going to replace tranny and differential fluid soon. TCT going bad? Need valve adjustment? Thanks!

Vid 1: https://streamable.com/xf2uoe
Vid 2: https://streamable.com/u35yzq

 

That is definitely not a TCT

Sounds like it needs a valve lash adjustment.

The car is warm - atleast from the .3 seconds I saw the guage when you were getting in the car. But Not sure if the car is full heatsoak warmed up? You will have to tell us.

Does the noise diminish after a drive to fully warm it up? 180K you are probably gonna have some piston slap on a cold not fully warmed engine(oil upto temp).

I would start off with the following as you are not sure of the maintenance history
- Check compression
- Do a leakdown
- Do a valve lash adjustment on a fully cold engine

Do these to get a baseline of where you are at. But that sound is definitely not the TCT.

 

Pulley bearing?

 

Sorry for not adding a little bit more detail. The first video is when the car is at 3 bars and the second video is when the car is at 2 bars. It's not that noticeable at cold starts and gets more noisy as it gets warmer.

Some more details:
-haven't gotten any CELs so far
-been driving conservatively (not hitting vtec; driven only around 150 miles in the past 3 months) before I finish changing all the fluids
-last oil change was around March 2020

I'll follow your advice and do the tests to see where to go from there.

Thanks!

 

check oil levels, if it's low add oil until it's at the full indicator level and retest. i think my old motor did this when the oil was low but not low enough to trip the oil light. it's been a decade and i don't remember the sounds as vividly anymore.

 

Checking oil level was first thing I did. Dip stick showed that the level was at the X under the H. Did multiple readings and checked for same measurement on both sides.

 

If oil's good then valvetrain / valve adjustment would be my next recourse of action.