I saw a Sky blue 92 Auto at an auto auction a week or so ago and i cranked it up and it had an off and on loud sound, sounded kinda like a rod knock from the top of the motor. Pretty loud. Was this VTC's? i could of gotten the car for 2100 with 108k on it with good paint/interior and it seemd to run fine other than that noise.

 

Yes, more than likely, that was all that it was.. and would have prob. been a pretty good deal for you to buy it..

 

Damn...shoulda bought it i guess...but i didnt know for sure because i had never heard VTC's before

 

ok i feel alittle dumb.....but what is a VTC?

 

Valve timing control.
They advance the cams to a different angle at around 3200-3300 rpm to allow for better breathing (me thinks)

 

For the past month my 92SE has what I at first thought was a slipping belt ... kind of a squeal for the first few km till the car warms up. But now that I listen to it, it sounds more like mechanical crickets and they sound out at around 1500 rpm ... it's not what I would call a knock as described by Foo90SE in this thread. I thought this was the dreaded VTC problem ... could it be?

 

ok guys besides the annoying sound of the vtc what are some other negative effects this problem has on the car?

 

That's sounds like a broken exhaust manifold stud.