Whenever I put a load on my engine, it will sometimes ping and tick. It sounds like it has low oil pressure or low oil, but I just had it changed and its running just fine. I'm also noticing a miss, and according to the CEL, it's on cylinder 1. I changed the plugs a few days ago, and after it threw the code I put some new wires on it. I don't want to spring for a new coil pack just yet.

Some people that have this issue have switched to higher octane gas, but wouldn't that just make things worse? I've never heard of one cylinder having so much more compression that it would require more octane.

 

It's not the #1 fuel injector making the noise, is it?

 

Well, it's not a subtle noise. It's noticeably loud, sometimes even at highway speeds. But that would make some sense. Before this happened, I put some liquid seafoam into the gas tank and my car ran horribly for a few weeks, then it ran fine except for this issue. I'll replace it and see what happens.

At the same time though, the sound is more noticeable, or at least I can replicate it more when the ac is running.

 

I changed out the #1 injector and at first it didn't make a difference, but through a night of delivering, it noticed it wasn't as bad, and it didn't miss once. Maybe it's more than one injector?

 

I was getting at checking to see if the injector was indeed making the noise.

 

It wasn't. I'm pretty sure it's a bad lifter.