Update, its a never ending cycle with this s***. Trucks been running good so we had fire on the bayou today at our local track so I took the truck and put it in the daily driver pass and it made a hell of a pass and low and behold after the pass its tapping. Pulled the valve cover and its looking like it dropped a lifter. I dont get it, brand new mellings JB-2079 lifters amd the first time I beat on it it drops a lifters? IS my luck just horrible or what?

 

Man, that just sucks. Are you sure it's that? If it is, hopefully it didn't tear things up too badly. I'm having problems as well, less major ones - seems like the faster you go, the more things break. Good luck, you'll get it figured out.

 

You could not have worse luck . How were the numbers on the pass ? Or do you think it went part way through the pass and power dropped off

 

Man I didnt even get my slip, I was so frustrated that I passed the person up with the slipped. Man it was pulling hard too. I know it was a better pass then ever. It threw my damn radio onto my lap when I let off the transbrake and it pulled all the way through the pass. I didnt notice the sound until after I let off the gas and I heard a ticking noise. We pulled a valve cover and notice one of the rockers had a little play in it so we changed it out and started it back and the noise way still there. My tuner was with me and he feels like it dropped a lifter so we put it on the trailer hauler and pulled it home. Next weekend ill pull the head back off.

 

Hopefully just a collapsed lifter and didn't trash cam and send shavings everywhere 🤞Hard to trust any aftermarket or oem parts these days

 

the oil looks clean, and thats the frustrating part, everything on the truck is either quality aftermarket parts or oem. I learned from the first go around dont cheap out on parts and my tuner(well i call him tuner, really my buddy who's does it all) is particular about using certain parts won't use cheap parts. Thats the first thing he did was check the oil.

 

Fingers crossed its just a collapsed lifter which would be my bet.
Most guys use the LS7 lifter, that's what is in my car currently, I'd get a set of those from BTR.
Yard the other head off and put a set of those in or go big and get some Johnson lifters.

 

Many years ago I had a Johnson lifter end up not so happy on the an engine dyno during break-in (cylinder was much colder than others). They stood behind them and sent an entire new set next day so that we could leave the motor on the dyno and continue the break-in. So it can happen with good companies. Hopefully just as GMCGreg said and minimal re-work even though removing cylinder head isn't the first thing I'd want to be doing on fresh setup.

 

my tuner uses mellings jb2079 in his cars and everything his owns is a 1000+ wheel and he doesnt have any issues. Thats why i went with those and I got them from speedway so I know there not fake.

 

You sound about like my tuner, he said the same thing. Basically that nothing surprising him anymore even with quality parts that he has had lifters collapsed straight out the box.

 

I bought genuine LS7 take outs from a member on here and they've been working well for me. Tickled 8K more than a few times now with no issues. My other car still has factory LS3 lifters in it and I shift that at 7100. Sometimes I think it's just down to luck.

 

yeh man it definitely shouldn't have happened, I shifted at 7k knowing in the back of my mind i could probably push it a little further but didnt want to push it to the limit the first time really beating on it. My dome pressure is 1:1 so i had the brake on 8 psi and gradually ramped up to 18 psi with the expectancy of gradually increasing it as I made my way through the daily driver class, of course that is if I didnt get knocked out. There's some pretty fast rides in our local daily class. Our rules are pretty wide spread.

 

Kind of questioning if its a lifter now, pulled the valve covers and watched the rockers and everything seems to be moving as it should, oil flowing through every push rod as it should. Pulled the rockers and all the push rods are straight as a whistle, did notice some of the trunions seemed to have a little play in them so I went ahead and bought a CHE trunnion kit and installed it yesterday. Only thing I have left it to put the coil overs back on and ill go ahead and check the plugs while im at it and I guess ill go ahead and crank it with the new trunnion kit and see if i hear the noise. Fingers crossed but if I still hear it ill dig deeper and start pulling the heads, just figured I would notice a dropped lifter by watching the rockers.

 

Could be an exhaust leak too, I'd look for that as well.
The lifter could have collapsed internally and just doesn't hold its pump.
Push on the rockers and see if any of them move.

 

definitely not an exhaust leak, I checked for that already. None of the rockers move, they all fill like they should and move up and down as they should when the engine is running and I see the oil flowing through the push rods equally. Wouldn't i have excess valve lash and loss of oil pressure if that was the case? I have neither.

 

Excessive lash but wouldn't affect oil pressure if the internals of the lifter failed, it just wouldn't pump up as its supposed too.
Did you check the valve springs too?
One may have broken, it happened to me not long ago and mine made zero noise, just lost 2-3" of vacuum.
Get yourself a cheap stethoscope from Harbor Freight, fire it up and put it on the valve cover, you should be able to zero in on which side of the engine it's on.
Plus, the speed of the tap will tell you if it's in the valve train or rotating assembly, slow tapping is valvetrain, fast is rotating assembly.
Do you have video?

 

I dont have excessive lash, and I checked all the springs because I actually had that happen to me around 2 years ago so that was one of my first checks. i have a stethoscope and i checked that too, its coming from the driver's side and it only does it when the engine is warm now. Cold start i don't hear anything and I can take a video but im not sure how to upload it onto here.

 

Just thinking of possibilities here , could it be
-engine warms up and so does the oil , one of the lifters has a high bleed down rate that isn't an issue while the oil is cold and thicker

 

ill all open to ideas, its not obnoxiously loud like it was before I changed the trunions. That made a big difference but i can still hear it coming from the drivers side. How would I be able to notice which lifter it is once I pull the head off? I mean I guess i could change the entire driver's side but I hate to do that since there all brand new.

 

I would pull the head. Went through something like this earlier in the year and it turned out to be P2V contact on #8 when the motor got hot. Anyhow, I wish I would had pulled head earlier - would have saved me a motor swap.

Hopefully, your issue is something not very serious, but I think it is better policy to just pull the head and check.