i have a 94 automatic gxe when i accelerate my car will make a faint ticking or pinging noise that gets faster as i accelerate. But i opened the hood and i slowley reved the motor and i could hear nothing so it sems like it only happens when i am in drive could it be an exhaust leak? what does an exhaust leak sound like? could it be my tranny i just had it rebuilt and got it back 2 days ago?

 

most likely it is broken exhaust manifold studs. very common on the vg's to break. from what i hear its probably around 300 dollars or so to get a mechanic to fix those but you'll have to check around to get an exact quote.

 

what type of gas are you using?
and check your timing, they may have bumped your distributor while R&R ing the tranny

 

i don't think they could have hit the distributor at all since its at the opposite side of the tranny... that'd be kind of hard to do but, it'd probably still be worth it to check before you spend any money. i'm placing my bet on the studs though. if you can look at the gasket area around the manifolds you'll see some black staining on the gasket if your manifolds are leaking.

another possibility could be the y-pipe since that is usually dropped to get the tranny out. i've found it easier to drop the tranny by removing the y-pipe so chances are they did that and probably didn't replace the gaskets. when the car is cold start it up, get under the car, and feel around the y-pipe flanges where they bolt to the manifolds. if those are leaking you should be able to feel exhaust leaking pretty easily.

 

i have been using the middle grade gas lately but a just started doing that about a month ago could that be an issue?

 

oh and i dont hear the ticking or anything at all from the engine bay when i get out and rev the motor only when it is driving

 

that happened with mine too. i think its from there being a load on the engine while driving and none when in neutral (meaning more gas is used under load and therefore more exhaust is produced whereas when there is no load/less load less gas is used)

if i remember correctly 89 should be the minimum octane used on our cars. if you use lower it could ping a bit which could cause the ticking... but since you hear it constantly i don't think it would be that (and i would hope its not since that can be very harmful to your engine)

 

so do you think its an exhaust leak

 

that would be my first guess. when the engine is cold (so you don't burn your hand) you can feel around for leaking exhaust around the manifolds and the y-pipe.