High Mileage. How high 4.6 !

Wow, you guys have really made me feel a lot better. I thought that cruising at anything over 2krpm was bad, but, I guess it's mostly cause I drove my Capri with a bad barring for like a year, and was always soooo nervous, and it like...wont go away, the nervousness. It's still there, I just can't feel comfortable driving my stang unless I let it sit a week and then just take it for a short fun spin ya know.

But given that sooo many of you, a very high percentage, have gears, there must be a lot of you that are cruising on the highway at well above 2000rpm. Heh, and I'm concerned at about the 2k, seems like I have nothing to worry about. I'm at 75mph at 2200 rpm, but spend most of the time at exactly 2k, which is exactly 69 mph. All stock gears/trans.

However, I have to do something I don't want to do, I have to use the Stang to commute about....now that I looked it up, 80 miles round trip per day, but it's virtually ALL highway, seriously, I'm 3 miles from the highway, and it's a fast road, like 55mph to get to the highway, and where I'm going is right off it, so, 99.9% of the trip is highway, which is good, but here's the problem. My rear has been whining since I bought the car last year, in February. I've put 9k on it, it has gotten no worse at all. I noticed a leak from the rear the moment I put my exhaust on, bout a month after gettin' the car. Serviced it and now it's good not leaking. But this is what's strange, for you techy's that can give me some insight as to what's the issue. When we took off the rear cover, the teeth looked brand new, sharp, and very little play in the gears, the main one, and the other on the side...or each side, whatever. Anyways, they were good looking, very much so, and the play was maybe at the most, 1/4 of an inch, like, maybe half the distance between one tooth to another. Ok, now here is what it does, simple really. When on the throttle like 50% or more, no whine at all, ever, when entirely off the throttle, no whine, when in neutral, no whine period either, the "ONLY" time it whines, is when I'm only slightly on the throttle, like, just enough to maintain speed, and gently accelerate, any more gas than that, the sound go's away.

So I dunno what's wrong, cause in my Capri when I first got it, it whined a little, at all times, no matter whether in gear or not, no matter how much throttle applied, etc etc. That thing lasted me 4 years without eventually failing, and it only failed cause I let it run empty, and when I finally noticed, it was too late, noisy as hell, and, I forgot to put in the stinky as $ possi additive, so it failed about 6 months thereafter.

Is it safe to do this commute? I don't beat the car at all, seriously, it never see's more than 2500 rpm, and that's only in first and second gear, after that I let the torque take over from the headers and exhaust, and it just pulls really nice up to speed.

Only other thing I can think to mention, oh, yeah, it's got 114k on it, car is in absolute mint, and I mean that, inside and out, so whoever had it, cared. Tranny shifts like a mercedes, beautiful. Anyways, one thing I noticed now that it's winter, and windows are up more often, well all the time, and so, I noticed, at about, 60-65 mph, only, when slightly on the gas, when I get my normal whine, I can kind of hear a shattering time of sound, very quiet, and not all the time, only noticable when stereo is off and windows up and just very quiet, sounds like it's coming from the back of the car....maybe I should jack up the rear and just run it up to speed and have someone listen or me listen while someone else does it. As for the sound, to better explain, it's like...if someone was standing 20 feet from you, and they took a bread knife, and rubbed it gently up and down something, hard, heavy metal. That's kinda how it sounds, but high pitched. When I first heard it, I thought "Heat shield", cause of my VR6 GTI, it sounds exactly like a loose heat shield on an import engine. Please, any help, soooo much appreciated, I don't want to wind up stuck with my car down where I have to travel, to newark NJ. Just a bad spot, any info at all and I'm in debt to you, and will make good on it.

Very sorry for long post, but I just seem to have a problem making a point with text, so I have to sssssppppeeelllll lllll it out, heh, again, ThAnkS

Dave, 1999 Limited Edition, BBK O/R X-pipe, Magnaflow Magnapac (Cylinder shape muffler, not normal lookin' one), Roush CAI. That's all that I can imagine can have any impact...maybe.... Okay, so hit me up with tha infinite Stangage wisdom, danke!!


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