I have a 1999 3.2 TL with 120,000 miles on the odometer.

Just a few days ago, the car started making a somewhat shrill whistling sound during gradual acceleration. I did some investigating this afternoon, and found a few more interesting details:

1. The whistling does not happen if I rev the engine while in park [P].

2. The car must be in drive [D4] for the whistling to occur, and only happens when accelerating at a normal rate of speed. "Stepping on it" does not produce the whistle.

3. The whistle sounds like it is coming from the front-right area of the car, not the intake area in the front-left.

4. Once I've accelerated past 2000 RPMs or so, the whistling fades away.

Does anyone have any idea what might be causing this? It's really starting to drive me crazy. I just spent some serious money on a new catalytic converter, timing belt, spark plugs, and EGR valve, and now that all that stuff is taking care of, my care is whining!

Thanks for your help.

 

Anyone? I'm about to take a long road trip, and it'd be nice to have an idea about what's causing the car to do this.

 

how long ago was the install fo the new cat and other exhaust parts of the car? maybe it was not sealed correctly when it was installed. there might be a gap or something.

are you sure its the air? maybe they did not correctly put back your pulley for the timing belt or something like that.

 

Check for leaks in cat and exhaust. I had the same symptoms. It was right at a cat bolt that needed to be tightened.

 

My CAI was doing the same thing. I consider it a feature