have u figure out that slapping sound? Mine is always have those sounds esp when cold start ilde. Not from cam tensioners, variable intake flaps, PCV valve.

I did rebuild whole top engine in Apr. because those broken tensioner arms make miss fire one one bank and zero compression on one bank. also rebuilt intake because those frozen intake flaps.

Those tensioners on V8 are way too expensive for year 2000 car, I managed fix them with $30 bucks tensioner arms on ebay and tig re-surface worn out arm support.

 

BTW, for v8 ART/AWN engine left and right cam chain links are diff. rememeber that driver side is 16, pass-side(right side) is 15. and right side is not pefect points.

 

I know this is a very old thread but it was one of the most relevant to my situation over the weekend. I can report that I did successfully complete a drivers side (bank 2) timing chain tensioner replacement without removing timing belt or loosing timing at all. It is extremely difficult and requires 2 sets of hands ideally but you have to loosen the drivers side timing belt rear metal cover to allow the tensioner to move upwards more and with a large amount of patience you can maneuver the intake cam and tensioner relative to each other such that the tensioner will slip out (JUST). It took me about 6 hours solid just to get the old one out and new one in, but boy am I happy I didn't have to pull the timing belt off. I did have to re-set the intake to exhaust timing based on the 15 chain link rule though.

BTW this was on an Audi A6 4.2 2001.