Whats up yall, I think I have a slight rod knock in my 90' CRX. Currently at 218whp on E85. She was installed with ACL black race bearings. Just did a valve adjustment hoping that was making the noise but it did not change. Intakes at .006" exhausts at .008". I removed alternator belt from engine, no change.
Compression is ~250 on all cylinders. Not that that's saying much.

Video of the noise. Motor runs so good but something just doesnt sound right. I am hoping I caught it early but then again it is very subtle and maybe I'm just being a little paranoid. Gotta find a stethoscope to try and car doctor it to pinpoint the knocking. Whatcha think yay or nay?

 

How did you get your tune on the motor? Any chance that the timing is off?

I run e85 in my d16a1 @ 12.5:1 CR and I don't have noise like that when idling (once warm).

 

You can pull up the spark plug wires while running to isolate the cylinder. the noise should quite down when u pull the effected cylinder plug wire

 

A guy who goes by Morris did the tune. He tunes all my boys builds. A little hard to start when dead cold but its a demon once shes warm.

I did the whole spark plug isolation test didn't seem to have much effect.

I'm about to pull this motor investigate and retorque everything.

 

Looks like you have some decent parts there, but what made you choose Blox valve springs? You have Ferrea valves, which are probably the best on the market, just dont see why you would then go to Blox for what could be considered one of the most important parts of the head package?

If I were you and you were going to open the motor up anyway, I would first remove that block guard and then replace those valve springs. As far as the knock goes it is hard to tell from a video like that, but keep in mind your pistons will knock to some extent being they are forged units. This should go away though once it warms up, so check it out...

 

If the noise did not change by pulling the plug wires it could be crank bearings or the forged pistons like someone mentioned before

 

Not really sure why the Blox springs. Sounds too deep it might just be those forged pistons. Does seem to quiet down a little once warm.

I got about 1000 miles on this oil. Currently running Brad Penn 15w-40 partial synthetic "The green oil". Did the ol' neodymium magnet test. Not a damn speck! Well thats a good sign.

What to do next??? Pretty sure I still wanna pull it and put a wrench on every single bolt for some peace of mind.

 

Just a heads up, keep in mind the bearings, pistons, and cam journals are not magnetic. So the magnet wouldn't pick up specs from wear on any of those. Anything the magnet picks up would have to be from: crank, cyl walls, cams, rockers, lma's, and maybe rings.

Also, running a magnet through already drained oil almost never will pick anything up anyway. Magnetic specks usually drop into the edges of the pan and stay there. Only way to gather them best is to put a magnet on the bottom of the oil pan and/or magnetic drain plug.

Best way to look for specks is to simply shine a flashlight into the drained oil, then stir it up a little. If it looks like car paint, that's typically piston material. And in a fresh motor, you can get piston material in the oil for well over 1000 miles fairly normally.

 

Its best to put the oil through a very fine strainer from the grocery store.

​​​​​​​I saw that your using skunk2 lma. You could be hearing valvetrain noise...

 

The computer I listened to it on isn't the best but the "ticking" sounds more like it could be the LMAs. I've seen countless situations where it's ticked like this, especially since isolating each cylinder didn't change much.

A lot of people are running Prelude LMAs with a spacer. Although there is an LMA set already spaced but they cost a bit more.

-Amp