Well, with my old a6 head on it ticked some, set the valves and seemed to help a little. New Z6 head went on Easter w/e and was supposed to have the valves set by the machine shop who resurfaced it and 3-angled it. The ticking was noticably louder, but still not too bad.

Now it seems to be pretty loud, and it doesn't feel as strong as it did and vtec doesn't engage like it did the first week. I'm not throwing any codes, occasionally it will throw an O2 code but i check and clear it and it goes away for a while. When i put the head on, i noticed the LMA's were a bit sticky and wouldn't push down on a couple of them, but didn't think anything about it then. It also seems to be running rich (can smell it and getting a bit worse mpg).

I'm not losing oil pressure(got a guage), so i don't think its a bearing, also pulled on my crank pulley some to see if may be a thrust bearing but it was tight. I don't have tools right now to check valves, but any help is appreciated, and sorry for the lengthy post.

 

Well, the first thing I'd do is check the valve clearances. Then go from there.

 

What are the proper clearances on the z6 head btw?