08 mustang gt tap/tick noise

I have 2008 mustang gt w/211k miles. It developed a tapping/ticking noise about 4 months ago that has gotten slightly louder. The noise only begins once the engine has warmed up and revved to about 900-1000 rpm. It’ll emit like an almost slapping noise that seems to come from the front of the engine around the alternator area. The noise completely disappears once disconnect vct solenoids, and even when revving, no noise is heard when they are unplugged. I would appreciate any input and help

Does it idle rough or throw any OBD codes? If the noise goes away once the VCT solenoids are unplugged, you just performed basic troubleshooting. Congrats, I think you just found your problem!

With 211k miles the solenoids are probably bad due to age and becoming clogged. This is common as they age, especially if the oil changes have been neglected. Change em out if they are both bad and stick with Motorcraft OEM solenoids or you will have to change them again. Aftermarket one's just don't hold up as well as OEM.

Yeah some cold starts the car sputters and won’t accelerate, when it does it still sputters but slowly clears up. Only codes I’ve had are for an o2 sensor, I have no cats in the exhaust. I actually replaced the vcts with some off of Amazon or eBay and it cleared the noise for a couple days only then it came back. At the same time as replacing the vcts, I did replace all the timing and phasers as well.

If you didn't use OEM parts for the timing and the phasers then get ready to do it again because they will fail. Timing components, VCT, Cam Phasers are not something you want to cheap out on because the aftermarket stuff is garbage. Phaser bolts are not reuseable. The video below will tell you all about it. Brian knows his stuff, I've followed him for quite some time.


Forums are littered with posts of people who did exactly what you did to try and save a few bucks and in the end they spent wound up spending more money because they had to buy the OEM parts. You are experiencing first-hand the problems with using aftermarket timing components, VCT and Phaser parts. You're gonna have to do it all over again with OEM parts, but hey...a valuable lesson has been learned. Aftermarket is fine for a lot of things but stuff like timing kits, VCT, Cam Phasers, Sensors etc you gotta stick with OEM or you're just wasting money.

The timing kit was the cloyes kit, can phasers got them individually and they came with new phaser bolts. Those parts alone made them engine noise in general much quieter, only sound I get is from the vct solenoids. Like you said, I’ll start on that with Ford oem vcts and then continue from there.