Two days ago I did a valve adjustment on my 1991 B18A1 with 220,000+ miles on it. Turns out some of my valve clearances were way off and my vavles were making a slight ticking noise for the last few months.

According to my 92-93 Acura Shop manual the intake valves are suppossed to be between .08mm and .12mm and the exhaust is suppossed to be .16mm and .20mm. I split the difference and set the intake at .10 and the exhaust to .18.

After the adjustment my car accelerates much smoother and the engine idles perfectly. However my valves are very loud at idle and acceleration. When I'm cruising in 5th there's no noise at all, but when I take off from a light, my car sounds like a tiny deisel motor.

The only thing I can think is that I'm using a 92 shop manual on a 1991 engine and maybe the spec's are different. Any suggestions?

-Steve

 

that ticking might be your injectors. I know even after my valve adj. i heard ticking ended up being my injectors

 

Its prolly the injectors, or maybe you adjusted them wrong. But I would say the injectors. its pretty hard to mess up a valve adj.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by deepgreengsr &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Its prolly the injectors, or maybe you adjusted them wrong. But I would say the injectors. its pretty hard to mess up a valve adj.</TD></TR></TABLE>

haha wrong it's very easy to mess up a valve adjustment. Your best bet is when you're setting the clearance, use the next size larger feeler guage and verify that it will NOT go in, but the one you're setting it to WILL go in. That's what I do, and the key is to double and triple check the clearances after tightening the nuts because it's pretty easy for the settings to change when you tighten the nuts if you're not real careful.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by PatrickGSR94 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

haha wrong it's very easy to mess up a valve adjustment. Your best bet is when you're setting the clearance, use the next size larger feeler guage and verify that it will NOT go in, but the one you're setting it to WILL go in. That's what I do, and the key is to double and triple check the clearances after tightening the nuts because it's pretty easy for the settings to change when you tighten the nuts if you're not real careful.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I just did a valve adjustment on my teg and tested and retested each valve after tightening and I have noticed a more audible clicking as well, and I can distinguish between my injectors and valves It's not constant, its rather intermittent(few seconds every min or so)... Is that just typical?

 

Same thing happened to me. I'm not accusing you of screwing up, but I guess it is something that can be screwed up pretty easily. I did it, and triple checked everything, and the damn car still ticks. I can't always hear it, and can only hear it when I stand at certain positions around the car, but it's there. Echoes off of objects too. If you've got an experienced friend, I say you watch them and see what they do... Maybe there's a trick to it that you're missing.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by alfaaay &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Same thing happened to me. I'm not accusing you of screwing up, but I guess it is something that can be screwed up pretty easily. I did it, and triple checked everything, and the damn car still ticks. I can't always hear it, and can only hear it when I stand at certain positions around the car, but it's there. Echoes off of objects too. If you've got an experienced friend, I say you watch them and see what they do... Maybe there's a trick to it that you're missing.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Yeah, sounds like I am experiencing the same noise that you are. We should meet up and bust out a stethoscope until we resolve it It was my first attempt at a valve adjustment, so I may have screwed it up, it went well and the car runs smoothly though. I'll go over it again next week I guess. How tight are you tightening the lock nuts after adjusting the screw? I wonder if I overtightened...

 

This is by no means my first valve adjustment. This is the first time however that the valves have been this loud afterwards. I am human, and it is possible I missed something or forgot to do something, though I doubt it.

Patrick, I do the same thing you do, use the next bigger size feeler just to make sure. And I can also tell the difference between injector tick and valve tick. The only thing I can think of is the high mileage (228,000ish, don't ask about the "ish").

I guess I'll triple check it on my next day off. The noise is tolerable and it makes my feel like I'm driving a little F350 or something. I guess I could punch a hole in the bottom of my gas tank to take that feeling a little further.

Thanks for the replies.

_Steve

 

The first time I did a valve adjustment I botched it, and it sounded like a diesel just as you described. I took it to a friend who is extremely experienced in all things Honda and had him check it over, and he couldn't find anything, either. However a few days later, right before I was just about to take it to a shop, I decided to check one more time and lo and behold I found one exhaust valve that was probably sitting at .030" clearance. I don't know how both my friend and I both missed it before, but that was definitely the problem.

 

Word. I am using a feeler guage that my grandfather used. Maybe back then .18mm was bigger.

I'll check it again next week. In the meantime my gas mileage has in improved and it runs 100,000,000,998 times smoother.

 

That's kind of an odd observation, I know when my car sounded like a diesel I sure didn't consider it "running smoothly"

 

But it does run smoother. The engine used to shake a little at idle, not enough to worry about but it was annoying. It also used to have slight hesitations during moderate acceleration through the rpms. Again not enough to worry about but enough that I could feel it.

After the valve adjustment thats all gone. Now it idles perfectly and I couldn't really ask for a smoother accleration. I'm still on my first tank of gas since the adjustment but I think I'm getting better gas mileage too. I'm bearly below half a tank and i have 240 miles alread.

Thats why this problem is odd. Everything is great...except for the noise. Maybe I should just be happy with what I have.

-Steve

 

if its still ticking, make the clearances tighter. 1 or 2 thou wont kill your motor. just dont go any tighter than spec on the exhaust only go tighter on the intakes.