O2 MotorSports, Lol
The guy is pretty nice to help.

Howdy..
At my high mileage, my well-running M44/09 engine sounds nearly identical...
Verry loud engine compared to modern inline-4's, I felt cautious as well when first purchased 2 years ago....

Slight balance belt whine is a characteristic of these smooth I-4's.
Considering these cars were born from a LeMans race car in the seventy's, noise is a good thing.
Enjoy!

There is no auto tensioner for the balance belt, which howls if it's too tight. The auto tensioner for the timing belt does not show up until the 968 and it'd be a big job to retrofit. That is the type of tensioner that has a dampened spring piston (and a little grenade pin you pull when you install it) to keep constant tension on the belt.

Some people convert to the late 944 spring tensioner, which is just a roundabout way of avoiding buying a tension gauge and does not auto-adjust the belt tension. You loosen it, allow the spring to set the belt tension, then lock it back down until next year. With good tension gauges around it's not worth upgrading to this system. Long story short if you think you have an automatic system to maintain the timing belt tension on your car, and your car does not say '968' on it, you might find out the hard way that you've been neglecting the timing belt tension and you've bent some valves.

There is a kit to retrofit the dampened spring piston tensioner to a 928 but I have never seen one done on a 944.

Also... I can't think of a mod that would allow someone to change the water pump, which is behind the timing belt and rear timing cover, without removing the timing belt unless massively modded to an electric water pump or something. Some people do mod the cover so you can remove it without taking off the crank pulley though.

-Joel.

+1 Joel, probably the modification the kid is talking about.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1363447831.jpg

Re: Why is my engine so loud???
 

I read that you're supposed to release the spring, rotate the engine two full revolutions, then lock it down. I find it nice not having to spend $500 on the genuine Porsche tensioning gauge. The only thing I don't like about is routing the belt through it. That's a pain in the ass.

Much more thorough than my earlier explanation. Very well explained. SmileWavy

OP, listen to this guy.

You are probably right, that procedure sounds familiar. It makes sense to work the slack around. I recall something about backing up a couple teeth also but it's been a few years since I had a 944.

As for the tension gauge, I have one but I do not think people really need one. Having some measurement is good, too tight and you can wreck the water pump or crack off the cam snout. Too loose, and... well... Some people can probably reliably get it in the butter zone by feel but having something to measure it with is better. On the Ducati you can spend $750 for the factory tension tool or use a guitar tuner and tune to pitch. Or the old 45 degree twist. All seem to work. The key IMO is the retension, if you have not done a new belt you'll be amazed at how loose they get in a few hundred miles. Some shops will crank them "too tight" when they install and let them wear and break into a hopefully correct tension but IMO this is asking for trouble and hard on the water pump and rollers.

Back to the OP I could not tell from the audio but the balance belt might be too tight. You can also get a whir from a bad alternator bearing and you can also get noises from a bad power steering pump or low power steering fluid. Plenty of things to check out. There is a lot of compression in the audio so I can't tell how much louder the whine is than everything else. I do not hear the injectors whacking away but that is more of a 16v thing IIRC. You can easily check the timing and balance belt tension and if that does not work drop the accessory belts to see if the noise is from one of those.

Cheers,
-Joel.

So very true,someone else did my belts and screwed up the whole job cost me an engine.
These engines whine and have ticking noises normally,my experience is that the mechanical tentioners make more belt noise,make sure your idler rollers aren't loaded against the belts,they are there to control belt deflection after all.
If you have louder noises thats when you should find out why,hydraulic lifters come to mind.

So very true,someone else did my belts and screwed up the whole job cost me an engine.
These engines whine and have ticking noises normally,my experience is that the mechanical tentioners make more belt noise,make sure your idler rollers aren't loaded against the belts,they are there to control belt deflection after all.
If you have louder noises thats when you should find out why,hydraulic lifters come to mind.

The video he posted didn't have any lifter noise in it. A collapsed lifter will be a LOT louder than the video was.