Was in the middle of getting my H22 tuned when the head started to tick. It got worse and now its a knock.
I have Skunk2 cams, valves, springs, retainers. All installed by a shop in cali.

Thought maybe the valve gap might have gone bad since hitting vtec for the first time with the motor. Only went up to 8k 2 times before the tick started.

Adjust my valve gap to .006 today and started the car and the knock was still there and just as loud.

any ideas? Im thinking it might be a vtec rocker arm or return spring for vtec.
There are no miss fires or roughness. starts right up.

It has to be something to do with vtec cause it idles and drives fine.

 

LMA? (lost motion assemblies?)

 

What do you mean exactly?

 

Depending on the head it's either a hydraulic piston or a spring that keeps the mid rocker riding against the VTEC lobe when not in use. When they wear out they don't provide enough tension and the rocker loses contact with the lobe and every time it passes the rocker smacks the lobe causing a loud tick. Other than taking guesses at what it could be why not just pull the valve cover and inspect the valvetrain?

 

thats exactly what i thought it was without even knowing the name. Thanks though. I did some reseach on lma's and likes like im going to order some new ones with the new spring design

 

You should make sure they are worn before you just go and buy new ones because you're gonna be disassembling your entire valve train just to replace them. In the OBD1 head they'll chatter even after 6k and still in good condition.

 

what else could it be. I just checked and they seemed ok when i pushed down on them. So they still work it could be that one is sluggish when the car is on.

The valves, cams, springs and retainers only have 1200miles on them. Just got over the 1000 mile break in and went to tune. Soo ya. like i said the car runs fine. It just has a head knock and im like almost positive its on the intake cam side of the head. sound like 1 slow knock

 

I also just noticed what you typed in the first post, intake and exhaust have different clearances. Should be IN 0.15-0.19mm(0.006-0.007in) EX 0.17-0.21mm(0.007-0.008in). If you do it on the tighter side it'll quiet it down but with chances of increased rocker wear and looser will be noisier but you'll reduce wear.

Maybe you should take a video but ONLY if you can hear everything clearly and maybe someone can help you out.

 

update: Replaced the lma's and it didnt do anything different. Decided to drive the car and ended up overheating the motor on a 2nd, 3rd, 4th pull at 12psi. Car shut off like it always does after full throttle(been doing it for weeks) then it wouldn't start. Pulled the park plugs out today and cylinder 1,2,3 are clean and good but 4 has a bunch of little metal pieces in it. The spark plug had shavings all over it and got so hot that the spark gap closed together.
Theory 1 - Something metal got into the cylinder and melted from the heat. which would be the knock from it bouncing around.
theory 2 - valve melted. was using NGK 7's copper
theory 3 - water pump is bad causing it to over heat and could be the knock.

there was no smoke. Everything was running perfectly until it shut off when i went to neutral. Debating whether or not to pull off the head and make sure everything is still good or clean up the little pieces and get new plugs and see if it starts. doing a leak down test before start as well.
The car overheated in the middle of the tune also just like it did when i pushed it for 10sec. btw

 

you're debating? pull that head off! metal pieces in your cylinder are NEVER good!

 

This happened to me, and it was the LMAs.