A little help with a frustrating noise.

[Futaba]

Hey all,
Was wondering if anyone would be able to help resolve pretty much my only nagging concern regarding my 86, it's a 2014, only 6k miles on the clock, never been tracked or driven hard or anything like that, everything is completely stock, I am just having a relatively puzzling sound issue when pulling away in first and immediately following the upshift to second, the sounds present on cold start and after warming up.

I've used a bit of audio filtering to try and single out the sound I'm getting to make it as clear as possible.

Can listen to it here : http://vocaroo.com/i/s1vDPdg8iBax
Note!! the sound usually only lasts 1-2 seconds as the RPM increases under normal driving conditions, for the above i deliberately accelerated really slowly to capture the sound longer.

Happens in first until around 1500rpm, then in second till about the same, I don't hear it in third or higher, seems to be even more pronounced the slower the car is travelling too.

All of my past cars have been FWD or 4WD, (Celica GT, GT4, Micra K11) and the only time I've ever experienced a sound similar to this was with the Micra and I managed to track that down to a missing bolt on the exhaust heat shield that was causings a frequency rattle under certain RPM, but i've had a look under my 86 and everythings present and accounted for.

holding the gearstick / reverse collar makes no difference to the sound either, though pushing the clutch in pretty much stops the sound completely.
I've noticed that the clackyness of shifting between first and second is pretty loud compared to 3rd and above too, maybe im just being overly sensitive but it bugs me.

Also, no error codes or anything, had a friend at Autobacs check via ODB2 and nothing came up at fault either.
Any ideas guys?

[DemonRawr]

Just some question beforehand:
Has the noise been present since you first got the car?

Do you start off at low RPM (900~1300).

Do you give more throttle once the RPM begins to dip after clutch engagement when starting in first?

From what it sounds like, I imagine that the noise is just from the engine bogging from low RPM. I find that anytime that my RPM is below 1500, it tends to bog. In regards to your second issue, it's normal for the transition from first to second to be a bit rough, especially on cold mornings. The best thing to do would be to clutch in and wait for a split second to allow for the RPM to dive down to the right RPM for second gear. If you shift too fast, it'll be really rough. It just take some time getting use to it.

Good luck!

[Futaba]

Originally Posted by DemonRawr

Just some question beforehand:
Has the noise been present since you first got the car?

Do you start off at low RPM (900~1300).

Do you give more throttle once the RPM begins to dip after clutch engagement when starting in first?

From what it sounds like, I imagine that the noise is just from the engine bogging from low RPM. I find that anytime that my RPM is below 1500, it tends to bog. In regards to your second issue, it's normal for the transition from first to second to be a bit rough, especially on cold mornings. The best thing to do would be to clutch in and wait for a split second to allow for the RPM to dive down to the right RPM for second gear. If you shift too fast, it'll be really rough. It just take some time getting use to it.

Good luck!

Thanks for the response, i'll see if I can fill in the blanks!

They noise has been present since I bought the car, hasn't got any worse or any better over the time I've been driving it, though I do notice that every now and then (more so when the AC is running but not always), pushing the accelerator slightly for a small change in speed results in a split second dip in rpm before the engine responds and increases rpm?

I tend to pull away at around 1300-1600 RPM because going lower results in the noise and the general feel that the case isn't happy (engine threatening to die on you), the issue comes with the roads here in Japan, and especially where I live they are extremely narrow, to the point that I think if I went with a rocketbunny kit I would genuinely run the risk of touching the walls on both sides of the road just outside my parking lot, because of this after driving when I'm returning home, I'm pretty much forced to baby the car in at low speeds, nder these conditions it's hard to maintain a good RPM without resorting to feathering the clutch.

Regarding the gear changing, it's actually less clunky/noisey from a cold start and gradually gets louder the longer the cars driven, we're having constant days of 35.c here lately so the cars never really "cool" so to speak.

For the gear change noise, the best way I can describe it would be that it sounds like there's a soda can cut in half attached to the bottom of the gearstick and it clips the aslphalt for a split second on shift, extremely close to the sound I was getting on my old workhorse micra when the heat shielding was missing a bolt.

I guess I'm overthinking things, I love this car so any noise i'm not used to or slight judder worries me a bit too much!