# Engine ticking



## Todd6790 (Sep 30, 2004)

Despite being hibernation season, I have been able to take my 04 out for a couple of spins when the snow and salt had thined down. Then Friday when we came home I heard a ticking noise loud enough to be heard both inside the car, and over the engine outside. This is about the 10th time this noise has reared its' ugly head. :willy: So I promptly went in and grabbed the cam corder and made a tape of the sound, as it comes and goes. I then set up an appointment with my dealer, this is the third time I have complained about this noise with the repeated "could not duplicate" or "normal driveline sound" responses from the dealership. I also discussed the shift lever rattle, and provided some of the posts from this site regarding how to deal with it. I also discussed the wheel shake that the car has, along with some more posts from this site regarding how to fix that also. My service rep responded with, well, unless we find that the problem is bad enough, there is not a lot we can do.  I am going to wait until they get back to me tomorrow, but I was wondering, if they continue with their entirely hands off approach, is there anyone that you have found at Pontiac that might be able to intervene on my behalf, I would appreciate. :cheers 
Thanks,
Todd


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## 97GTP (Feb 8, 2005)

What you're probably hearing is piston-slap (piston slapping the sleeve). LS1s are notorious for this. Dont worry, it's not a big deal, just annoying.


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## 97GTP (Feb 8, 2005)

"Piston slap is far worse than that.....and it can't be cured with a bottle of techron. It came about in the 99 model year GM pickups. Their versions of the LS1 had hyperuretic pistons instead of cast ones. These pistons have larger expansion/contraction limits than conventional pistons, and because of this, made a chatter during warmup. After the engine had reached NOT, then the pistons had expanded enough to fill the cylinder and stop the noise. There is a big conspiracy theory about this, and you can read about it here www.pistonslap.com :"


pulled this of a forum.


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## Todd6790 (Sep 30, 2004)

My understanding is that piston slap is during warm up. This sound is occuring well after warm up, usually after 15 minutes of driving. The sound speeds up with engine speed, and comes down as engine speed goes down to a very rythmic tapping. I just think that this is not a sound that should be coming out of a $33,000.00 car.


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