New guy needs some help......

[TSI15PSI]

I have a few questions to ask everyone on the board. Ben was driving my car this morning because I wanted his honest and knowledeable opinon on what my car was doing. At about 2000rpms the engine begins to make a shaking sound and at a higher rpm (52-5500) it begins to vibrate?? Ben suggested that it may be a pulley that is not on right which is causing me to lose power at higher rpm's. I would appreciate any input on this. I was also wondering if anyone has a compression tester...I am very interested to see what she is at. I already am preparing myself for a rebuild on the engine and I would like to know who or where?? you guys and ladies suggest taking it...what would be my best bet. I appreciate everyones input. Thank you very much.

 

[ProjectGSX]

Vibration can be a lot of things. If it is RPM dependant, it could be the balance shafts being out of phase. If it is speed dependant, it could be alignment or wheel balancing.

Have you had your timing belt done recently?

 

[Robert Young]

OK, first of all, who the h3ll is Ben?

If you haven't had any engine work done recently that corresponds to the start of this vibration, you might want to take a close look at your harmonic balancer. It is a pretty common problem to see them start to separate as they get 5yrs old or so.

Avoid the temptation to replace it with a solid aluminum pulley, Mitsu put a damper on there for a reason, it needs damping.

Robert Young
Forced Performance

 

[TSI15PSI]

Sorry about that....he is my friend. The belt was replaced along with the water pump and the head was "supposedley" done along with this. I am not to sure because it smokes blue more then joe camel does. Could be piston rings? The vibration on the other hand from what I gathered from u guys is the Harmonic Balancer...now is that a pain to fix? or can u even fix it? Will there be a power loss at higher RPMs? What do u look for? Like I said the belt was redone...about a month ago it was making a whinning sound. I took to the dealer and a few other places and all said the belt was to tight?? It has not made this sound since.....please help me everyone. Thank u very much.

 

[niterydr]

the harmonic balancer is just your crankshaft pully, its 4 or 5 bolts pending how old it is (only 4 bolts hold it on, but you sometimes have to remove the middle on to get it to clear) i think the part is around $100 or so from mitsubishi.
The balance shafts (if they are bent) sound really horrible at around 5k (free reving) almost like someone is hitting the motor with a sledgehammer over and over..
you can tell if the balancer is seperating or not just by looking at the conditions of the rubber between the 'grooved metal' and the 'mounting metal', while your their you can pull off your front cover assembly and check your balance shaft belt (it usually gets shreaded or is missing teeth when there is a problem with the shafts).
good luck.