Whirring problems, Nobody's figured it out yet... Options

[Rook]

Hey all...gotta problem with my 5sfe. i took it to my mechanic and have gone to a buddy who does a bunch of work on his 5s camry and still haven't been able to figure it out. the engine does a wierd whirry noise. its kinda hard to explain. but it makes the noise at all times...whether in neutral or in 4th gear. My mechanic has said it could be a number of things which have been replaced. starting with the power steering pump, then the timing belt and the tensioner, and the water pump. problem didn't go away after blowing about 300 bucks. then i decided to go look at it myself with a friend. he is still kinda amateur but he knows how to pull apart his 5sfe and put it back together so i figured i could trust him. we replaced belts and then checked and replaced a pulley (with a pully off his camry which he said was still good) and the whirring noise went away. then when i go to leave his house the engine made a horrible noise like if something was grinding plastic...so we pulled it back apart and turned out the timing belt wasn't tight enough so we tightened it. we put it back together and the whiring noise was back so then we took off the oil pump and checked the gear. it seemed fine so we put it back.

so obviosly i've gone through lots of crap trying to fix it. its bugging the heck out of me. lol. hopefully i didn't bore anyone with my super long explanation or confuse anyone any advice or help would be very appreciated..

This post has been edited by Rook: Jul 21, 2009 - 10:15 AM

[Bitter]

not the serpentine or accessory belt tensioner, the timing belt tensioner. you tightened the timing belt and the sound got worse, you loosened it and it got better, its something to do with the timing belt. is there an idler for the 5S-FE timing belt? that could be bad as well.