STI 7 engine noisewhen cold
 

Anyone give any advice on the following
when starting my car from cold a hear a very light knocking noise from inside the cabin (Nearside) which disspears at 2000rpm but when you have a look under the bonnet it is not apparant. the noise totally disaperars after 5 min of driving. I hoping it is not piston slap as i thought the newage cars did not suffer from this ? the car has 34000miles with FSSH.
Any ideas whet to check for ?

Possible Cam belt tensioner..tap..tap..tap when first starting. The tension drops over time/night then re-primes when you start.

The noise is the tensioner bouncing until it's back up to pressure.
Quite common for these to fail, even the re-deisgned ones.

how do you check for this ?

Also why can you only hear in the cabin ?

If you can only hear it in the cabin then its probably the boost solenoid.

Open the bonnet, stand in front of the car and on the left (driver side) by the suspension turret you will see a group of pipes and cylindrical solenoids. Rev the engine slowly with your right hand (you can do this from under bonnet by rotating the throttle butterfly towards yourself) and put your other hand on the mess of pipes etc. If its the solenoid you will feel it pulsing.

But the noise is only there when cold ? surley if it was the boost solanoid the noise would be there hot or cold plus the noise is from the near side ?

Mine does this too mate, It goes after about 30 yards of driving. I thought it was the hydraulic lifters. Will be ivestigating cambelt tensioner though. Thanks for the info that man :D

see http://bbs.scoobynet.co.uk/showthrea...belt+tensioner

scoobyboy would be a good man to PM, as he helped me diagnose mine and will be able to confirm if any of the newer models also suffer.