Today my friend did a valve adjustment on my car, at first he did .005 on the intake and .007 exhaust. When he was finished i took it out for a ride and noticed that midrange pulled really nice, however, top end just wasn't there, i could barely feel vtec kick in. Also i noticed a loud ticking at idle and even louder when the car is on load. You could say it sounds like a diesal VW. So i go back and i asked him what he adjusted them to, he told me and i knew that the intake was off so i told him to re-adjust them to .007 int and .008 exh. So he did and the ticking noise is still there. What could it be?

 

injectors?

 

No the injector are firing. No CEL and the car runs fine and all.

 

what kind of ticking is it?

 

U know that ticking u have from any honda engine at idle? Thats it just louder.

 

I just did a valve adjustment and the same thing is happening to me. Used a feeler guage and adjusted to .007 intake and .008 exhaust. It ticks for about 3min when I start the engine cold in the morning but then goes away for the rest of the day. Anyone know whats up?

 

You got it good. My ticking stays regardless cold or normal operation temp.

Please help us.

 

I use .006 for the intake side and .007 for the exhaust side.

 

Seems to me like the larger the clearence....the more noise the valvetrain would make. Maybe the clearences need to be smaller. Factory is .008 exhaust and .007 intake right?

 

Well its .006-007 int. & .007-.008 exh factory specs. Still wouldn't make sense if the smaller u go the less noise because i had it at .005 int. and .007 exh. by accident and the noise was there, unless it would that much of a difference by 1 thou.

 

WTF is that noise!

 

If the clicking goes away when youre warmed up, its because they are super tight upon cold start up, then once you get warmed up, your valves will expand ever so much and cut down on the clearance making the clearance tighter. Yours are probably way too tight and theyre never really where they need to be. But too tight is better than too loose.

 

They say slight drag on the gauge but from my experience you have to set them so the feeler can just barely be pulled out. Slight drag on my old gsr meant loud a@# valves, just my .02c.

 

Valve clearance should be adjusted when the engine is cold (ambient temp).
Then, only when the engine is cold, you should hear them ticking. At operating temp. there should be no clearance -> no ticking.

If you adjust the clearance when the engine is hot, the valves will always tick (and even louder when cold).

 

THIS** I have this problem and have since double checked the valve lash, I think the feeler guage needs to barley slip out, I will try again and update. Also my VTEC makes a hesitate/backfire noise from this. My tolerances are probably too loose..

 

You should not be able to put the feeler gauge in at ".008 for the intake side. ".007 should be a nice tight drag on the feeler. For the exhaust side, you shouldn't be able to put it in at ".009 with a tight drag on ".008. You could also go a little tighter than this as well. MAKE SURE YOU'RE TORQUING THE JAM NUT DOWN CORRECTLY WHEN YOU'RE DONE. It's supposed to be tightened down to 18lb-ft. So make sure that's on there nice and tight AND THEN recheck the valve clearance you just adjusted on that valve as the screw sometimes moves when you're tightening down the nut. If it's off, redo the adjustment, torque nut, rinse, repeat. Assuming you're initially adjusting them within spec, the two major causes for excessive noise after a valve adjustment is the screw moving while you're torquing down the nut and you don't recheck it or just not torquing it down tight enough to begin with as this will cause a loud ticking too. And as always, only do the adjustment on a completely cold engine (sitting for 24 hours).

 

maybe your buddy isn't good at valve adjustments ?

 

Unless you're experienced and have the right tools I wouldn't touch the valve clearances in the first place. On newer models IIRC Honda only recommends adjustment if there is excessive noise. So unless they were noisy, most likely buy someone else screwing them up, then just leave them be.

 

 

Could be this, I believe its redesigned now.

 

In my years of experience on doing valve adjustments I had to go back 2 or 3 times and re adjust them because of the ticking sound, Just when you think you have the right drag and torque on the nut you can easily and I mean easily change the lash when torqueing the nut because if you don't hold it literally straight while turning the nut you will end up making it too tight or too loose, I like to use Lucas engine assembly lube on the feeler gauge and then feel for the drag and tighten the nut, the lube gives you a better feel for the drag. There's a art to this I tell you! If properly done you will hear nothing but the sweet sound of the engine purring no ticks! Wait till the morning and do it again till it sounds quite. Once idk how after doing the lash a few days later a crazy sound was in the head, I checked the lash and all my ex valves were tight! re did the lash again and it was fine, weird things can happen when messing with the valve lash if you don't know what your doing.. You need NASA like precision when doing this!

 

 

i have 02 civic ex vtec and i was having misfiring that was jumping all over the place and took it to a shop and they told me that the only thing they could say causing the misfiring is valve lash adjustment.i did them myself three times and was still having the noise and vibration.this is the specs that I'm working with

.what can you advise me to do so i could help myself ?i like to help myself for the sake of getting the experience and learn how to do things

 

A misfire can also be an ignition problem.

 

What kinda ignition problem specifically?