Lifter/rocker tick... possible quieting method + story
05-29-2008, 02:16 PM
#1
Lifter/rocker tick... possible quieting method + story Since getting a cam in along with dual springs + 7.4 pushrods a year ago, every once in awhile I'd get a tick coming from the valve cover area. If I let it idle for a min or 2 or give it a good jolt with some 6k rpm lovin' it'd go away. My solution had been to run my normal GC 0w30 + some thickener. Mobil 1 5w30 had it the worst, Castrol 20w50 kinda helped, Mobil 1 0w40 worked but after 2-3k miles it'd come back during long highway drives. The cam is a TR224 0.561 + Patriot Gold Duals + 7.4 Comp Cams Chromoly pushrods. I know these cams tend to use an aggressive ramp rate which are brutal to stock lifters.
The wipe pattern seems pretty much dead on on the valve, did the marker trick so didn't think too much about it except that new lifters were in the future. I know quite a few videos of this sound exist from people thinking spun bearing or rod knock, but oil has been clean of any major shavings + UOA = normal.
Right now 0w30 + thickener (really a stop leak formula) seems to be the spot on solution for this as very rarely does this come back ie 1-2 times per 5k miles. When it does come back it sounds terrible (more embarassing than engine killing).
With regards to tightening the rockers, I tried roulette 22 ft/lbs, the GM manual way and now have tried the bring the intake/exhaust to open and reset the other intake/exhaust to 22ft/lb. I cleaned the bolt hole of oil/dirt and loctite, scraped it off then reapplied a new bit of loctite as well as putting oil on the threads of the bolt. I swear this has actually knocked down the "rocker/spring" noise a good amount, I used to have a unison tick from all of the rockers, now it only sounds like maybe 1 or 2 may be ticking. Even then I have to strain to listen to it. It was bad enough before that when coming to a stop you could hear the "harmonic" tick of all the lifters reflect off other cars or the curb. Now it's a lot quieter as opposed to before. The test will come with a trip to the drive through to see if my engine drowns out the speaker and myself.
The wipe pattern seems pretty much dead on on the valve, did the marker trick so didn't think too much about it except that new lifters were in the future. I know quite a few videos of this sound exist from people thinking spun bearing or rod knock, but oil has been clean of any major shavings + UOA = normal.
Right now 0w30 + thickener (really a stop leak formula) seems to be the spot on solution for this as very rarely does this come back ie 1-2 times per 5k miles. When it does come back it sounds terrible (more embarassing than engine killing).
With regards to tightening the rockers, I tried roulette 22 ft/lbs, the GM manual way and now have tried the bring the intake/exhaust to open and reset the other intake/exhaust to 22ft/lb. I cleaned the bolt hole of oil/dirt and loctite, scraped it off then reapplied a new bit of loctite as well as putting oil on the threads of the bolt. I swear this has actually knocked down the "rocker/spring" noise a good amount, I used to have a unison tick from all of the rockers, now it only sounds like maybe 1 or 2 may be ticking. Even then I have to strain to listen to it. It was bad enough before that when coming to a stop you could hear the "harmonic" tick of all the lifters reflect off other cars or the curb. Now it's a lot quieter as opposed to before. The test will come with a trip to the drive through to see if my engine drowns out the speaker and myself.
