After getting home and parking my car and leaving it sit over night I have a loud tick coming from the valve train. It wasn't doing it before because it was loud enough I noticed it immediately. It appears to go away if I give the car any throttle. I will check the valve lash as soon as I get a chance tomorrow, just curious if anyone else has had something like this happen. This was after a night of some spirited driving but as I said I stopped at several stop lights and never heard a sound out of the ordinary.

 

Don't forget to check oil level as well.

 

Oil is fine, never lost pressure that I saw either.

 

I'll double check in the morning to verify 100% but I normally see oil pressure at 75 psi on cold start and around 25-30 psi when warm and idling

 

When was the last time you checked the valve lash?

given that there's no hydraulic lash system in those heads oil pressure shouldn't be a factor.

 

When I put it together. A couple nights ago was the first time it's seen 9k like that though. Only did a couple pulls to 9k on the dyno but that's been several months ago. I get off work at 5 am and I'll be heading home to check the lash since it's nice and cool. Lows down in the 50's is insane for July here in Missouri. I'm gonna take advantage of it haha

 

check the valve lash. it could also be the LMA. My old worn on LMA would tick very hard and sound like rocks were in the head. I got rid of the 20 year old stock LMA and went with skunk2 LMA. No more ticking

 

Whole in the sparkplug boot can make a loud ticking sound

 

valve lash was a bit off but not bad. i corrected the couple that were off and the tick is still there. i have h22 LMA's with spacers so they are the same height as the old gsr ones i removed. i will upload a video in a sec, ignore the messy engine bay lol i guess my next step is take the cams out and take a closer look at the valvetrain

 

finally got the stupid thing to upload. photobuckets mobile app sucks lol

 

Tap get louder when you take the oil cap off?

 

Did not get louder with catch can vent lines removed from vc. Just noticed that fuel pressure has dropped to 20 psi at idle. The ticking noise is coming from over near the fpr, I called aeromotive and they told me they have seen springs break in very rare cases. He said it's likely my pump or filter but both are fairly new so I'm not buying that. I'm on e85 with an oem filter and dw340 pump. Pressure was holding around 40 psi at idle last time I checked it. Is it possible the fpr is causing the clicking or ticking that I'm hearing?

 

just popped the cap off. ticking does not get louder. i had to turn the adjustment WAY in before it moved back up to 40 psi. i guess ill pull the regulator and take it apart and see whats going on there.

 

normally if the ticking is in the head then taking the cap off will make it louder.

a lot of injectors tick, especially the larger ones.

I bet if you listen closely around the fuel rail you'll hear each injector clicking as it fires... sometimes you can even put your hand on the injector and feel the "click" while the motor is running

 

thats what i keep reading, but why would it just start ticking louder all of the sudden? this is a very noticeable tick that was not there before, but it does appear to sound like its coming from the rail/FPR area.

 

Put a screwdriver handle to your ear and place the tip along the rail and on each injector to listen to them. It's kind of a ghetto mechanic's stethoscope.

 

i will just buy one at harbor freight they are cheap lol

 

Injectors are moving parts, when new they wear in like everything else, thus they start making noise.

 

injectors all sound the same with the stethoscope. nothing in the head seems excessively loud with the scope either, and i tried it on the front of the block under each runner on the manifold, no strange sounds coming from any of them either. should i get under the car and try it on the pan? it appears to be coming from the drivers side of the bay, i took the belt off the alternator, that didnt stop it. im running out of ideas aside from doing an oil change and seeing if theres any metal in it, even though i hear nothing from the block with the stethoscope

 

Can you scope around your oil pump?

 

if i get under the car i probably can. this just really puzzles me because it was fine until it sat for a day and half, then it starts ticking

 

im getting nothing from the pan, however after playing around i seem to get the loudest tick through the scope just above the flange where the exhaust manifold bolts to the head at the drivers side front corner. it gets progressively quieter the further the further towards the distributor i go. valve lash was set with the engine cold and i did 6 thousandths on the intake and 7 thousandths on the exhaust. it almost sounds like an LMA tick, but these are spring style h22 lma's so im not sure why they would be ticking. none of the pins appears to be stuck as the middle rocker moves freely on all cylinders but that is with the engine off so im not sure how much that is worth.

 

Sounds like the head needs to come off

 

how do you figure? i get no tick anywhere on the block or pan, the noise is definitely coming from the head.

 

well, start by pulling the valve cover and checking for anything loose or something that shouldn't be there...

next step would be pulling the cams and checking the rockers, lifters, springs, retainers, and lma's.

after that you don't have a choice but to pull the head