Originally Posted by SteveCZ28

im just thinking out loud here. ive been having problems with my 06 monte ss, with what seems like really bad lifter tick. im running out of options with it. i can tear it down and hopefully fix the lifters. but a member on here mentioned it may only temporarily solve my problems.

so im just broadening my horizons a tad. i found a junk yard motor with 44k on it. they want a reasonable price for it, and its fairly local to me. bad part is it has a cracked oil pan. this motor is coming out of a 05 grand prix gxp.
i got on gmpartsdirect. looked at oil pans. i looked at a 05 oil pan, which appears to be a 1 year only pan. then i looked at a 06 pan( to see if i could use my curret pan), and it says it fits 06 and 07. on my other thread about my problems with my current motor, someone mentioned that my 06 has check valves in the pan, and oil filter housing, and the 07 doesnt have these. so why does it say the 06 and 07 can use the same pan? or is it possible to run a 07 pan on a 06 or 05, and get rid of these check valves? or does the 05 pan fit a 06, and not 07? im just confused here is all. or could i run my current 06 pan on the 05 motor? if so, id still be worried about the check valves in this pan. i was able to replace 1 check valve near the oil filter, but there is another in a bypass plate that i wasnt able to replace. who knows if i fix this valve if my current motor will run the way its supposed to or not. but where it is currently, i cannot fix it while in the car. i would have to drop the pan and hope i can get the valve out as its pressed in
also, if i did purchase this 05 motor, will it go into my car and run correctly? ive seen problems running a 07 motor in a 06, as the reluctor gears are different? but i havent seen anything about the 05 into a 06.

i thought about tearing down my curent motor and rebuilding, but cost is an issue, and then i dont know how much damage if any is already done to current motor with what sounds like dry starts.
i guess any infrmation would be helpful for me. buying this 05 motor sounds like the easier option for me at this point.

Originally Posted by Ill_Born_ss

Changing the OPR valve may help but as I re-read the whole thread it does kinda sound like 1 lifter is becoming un-locked every few starts causing the as you say really loud clack. You will always hear some minor tick.. be it from the lifters or the injectors. So you ask what would I do? Well both the options givin will take around the same amount of time but the installing new lifters would be cheaper and it would be done with (if you are planning to turn the DoD off you would benefit most if not planning to modify the engine) (recommended) If you are planning to modify then there are other lifters available. As for the engine itself it is still a baby as far wear and you could easily see 200k as its lifespan. So a lot of the choice is to do with your future plans and use for the car.

Originally Posted by SteveCZ28

im planning on keeping this car for a while. as i got rid of my camaro for my 05 tahoe for my new family. so this monte is my camaro to me again. so doubt itll go anywhere for a while. i cried when the camaro went down the road. this car will just be my fun daily driver again. ill do some light mods here and there mainly (intake,exhaust) but nothing major like a cam and all that jazz, so itll still be stock internally.thanks this allows me to follow a repair direction that being said, yes i know what these ls's sound like. my 99z28 had very little noise on startup. on super cold days it would tick for approx 3-5 seconds. my tahoe is a 05 with the 5.3 as well. itll tick here or there, but it also clears up within 3-5 seconds, and it has 124k on the clock. the monte, makes a loud ticking,clicking, clacking noise, and it lasts for minutes.Yes this is where the difference is in the location of the noise i usually let it warm up before i drive it, as ive done that with everything i own. but the monte ill let warm up till my temp gauge is in the middle of its range, as thats when the motor calms down, and sounds like a normal car again. it runs perfect, just noisy when cold
when i changed the opr valve in the filter housing, the valve was very clean. had no debris in it. and seemed to function well when i pushed the valve with a screw driver.this opr is for the anti drain back into/from the oil filter itself it pissed oil for a little bit before i was able to remove it.again this is expected as it is to prevent drainback and it is also supposed to only bypass the filter if the filter becomes clogged or at 65psi that being said, could it be possible the other opr valve in the bypass housing part of the pan could be clean and clear too?clean and clear yes but this opr is for the other end of the upper oil galleys, it too opens at 65psi... so if it is leaking or partially open or opening at a much lesser pressure then your upper end would not pressurize as it is supposed to i just know that one will be a P.I.T.A to remove. i was barely able to snake my finger in there, let alone tools to remove it. so kinda dont wanna do it if i dont absolutly have to. as I explained what this one does and yes it is some whata pain as for room but it can be done, I have changed many only 1 cracked one and some that felt little effort to push the plunger some seemed to make no difference after changing. what I have found as a trend it seems most failures of dod lifters were in the aft cylinder bank and I have changed out just the rear lifters with no comebacks.. there are lots of customers the simply not in a position to pay for all the work and will gamble with it being a one of problem. one of my ls4`s has 185k and is once in a while at -25 done exactly what you describe and I will possibly change all lifters over the summer just because of the miles.
currently, i am still running 6oz of seafoam to the 6qts of oil that are in the motor. I currently do this with every oil change on all my vehicles , have been for so many years now.
i installed the 91 octane tune with dod turned off via my intune programmer. am running 92 octane fuel in it.

Originally Posted by Ill_Born_ss

The intune is great you will like it and I can assist you with it after your mechanical situation is no longer a problem.

Originally Posted by SteveCZ28

if it makes any difference, when it was making noise one day i opened the hood. to me the noise sounds like its coming from the rear of the bay, left side of block if looking at from balancer. and the first 2 cylinders.yeah the center 2 cylinders are DoD in the rear

also you mentioned sticking a course screw in there to help pull it. what exactly did you use? something like a deck or construction screw?

Originally Posted by Ill_Born_ss

Originally Posted by rottonj

Seems to be louder from the passenger side, you could use a stethoscope to try to pinpoint it down . The sooner the better on the oil change(synthetic for sure), its not that expensive and it could possibly help although I doubt it will . Might be worth it to try the Lucas Synthetic Oil Stabilizer when you change the oil as well. Always make sure you add to the oil filter as well during oil changes, it sounds stupid because everyone who changes their own oil knows this but I have a friend who didn't until I told him . For me that noise isn't loud enough to tear into the motor, but I'm not driving it either. Good luck .

Originally Posted by Mike The Canadian

Just throwing this out there, but could it be piston slap?
My old 3x00 used to do it real bad until warmed up but it never really did anything (no fluid consumption, no power or mileage loss, no loss of compression).

Just a thought

Originally Posted by texasGXP08

This may be ignorant, but I'll just throw it our there. I had a similar noise on an old eclipse that I used to have. I thought it was cam lifter tick. It only did it for a bit when it was cold out, but over time, the sounds became constant. I took it to the dealership (mostly for a warranty on the repair) and the issue ended up being that a few rocker arm lash adjusters had slowly failed. Once those were replaced and calibrated to spec, the engine was silent and like new.

I do not know if the LS engines have anything like that, but just thought that I would share.

Originally Posted by superglide9375

is it the idler?sray some crc on idler see if it calms down,if noise goes away replace idler unless u sure its under valve cover just hearing it louder at wheel opening is throwing off lifter tick scenario,just a thought