Heres the scenario, I recently finished building my B16A2 engine block, everything was assembled to factory or aftermarket part specs and nothing was done to the cylinder head. After the bottom end was assembled, I assembled the head with ARP head bolts (torqued to ARP specs) and retorqued the cam journal caps to factory specs. I did not lubricate the lost motion assemblies but I lubricated everything else (cams and journals). When the engine was first fired up it was very doggy and would not run at low rpm without the throttle open a bit but at high rpm it smooths out. I also throw a code 1289 as soon as the engine is started, which is the VTec solenoid. I checked it, and it is hooked up right but i didn't do any more testing on it. After a couple of minutes of runtime, when you rev the engine up and let it idle back down I would get a light tap, not a steady tap like a valve but a random tap tap. This tap does not go to the beat of anything, it is all random. I did check the valve clearences before the engine was put in and they were all in spec. The timing is good and compression is 165psi across the board. My only assumption is that something with the lost motion assembly is making this mid rocker make this random tap noise. This noise is definately coming from the top end, if you place your hands on the valve cover you can actually feel the tap. One last note the engine ran fine before I built it up.

PLEASE, any opinions or input you have, LET ME KNOW!!