I went to the drag strip yesterday and my car started acting up. I have the car listed in my sig, Auto car with 29,000 miles. Here is what is going on.

I made 3 passes down the track and then gave the car a 30min cool down. I fired the car and drove it into the staging lanes. I let it idle for 10 min in the lanes and I was just about to race and my car just stalled out. I thought WTF because I have an auto and it has NEVER stalled on me in 2+ years of owning it. I tried to restart the car and it would not start. I finally got it to start by pressing the gas about 25% witch I never have to give it gas to start. When it started it was shaking violently like it was running on 3 cylinders or something. I had to keep giving it gas from stalling. I limped the car over to the trailer and then all of a sun it was idling smooth as can be and acting 100% normal. I popped the hood and looked under that car and noticed a new ticking sound that was never there before. It is coming or at least sounds like it is coming from the driver's side, rear upper part of the cylinder head. The sound sounds like a piece of metal just bouncing around in the valve covers and when you rev the car it just gets worse and the piece of metal bounces more. The engine has never been opened up and never over revved. The car even shifts at 5600 so it shifts early. I am going to read the codes later and pull the valve covers and take a look. Any suggestions of what I should be looking for?


Here is the sound on a cold start....
Download FreeHi-Q 6-4-2008_11.mp3

Well here is the update....

I did almost everything; I installed new LS7 lifters, Hardened push rods. LS6 valve springs and GM MLS head gaskets and made sure the converter bolts and the exhaust was not leaking in any way. All of this work and the noise is 100% unchanged so I decided to switch from Mobil 1 to Royal Purple 5w30 and that did not make a dimes worth of difference. I ran the car at the track and it went 12.1 at 110 with a 1.80 60ft witch everyone thinks it run good for an incomplete bolt on car. I guess I am just never going to be able to sell this car and just drive the **** out of this thing tell it breaks but I am not going any deeper into the motor. Any thoughts?

 

a lifter?

 

A broken valve spring or bent push rod.

 

You guy's think it is lifter’s, valve springs or pushrods? I mean this car has less that 20 pass down the track and 29,000miles. The car is an auto and never shift's greater than 5600. I guess it is time to take a look.

 

Or a rocker arm spit its guts?

 

I pulled the valve cover and everything looks fine. I have no ideal were the noise is coming from but it is not that loud so I may have missed it. We unplugged the battery and repluged it and now it is running fine even though you can still hear the slight ticking from about 1600 to 1900. At other rpm levels it seams to be very hard to notice. I have no ideal what is going on so I guess I am just going to get it tuned and see what happens because it is throwing codes for the stall and intake.

 

TTT..... The noise is now getting much louder after putting 46 miles on the car. It is to the point were people are noticing it and asking me what the horrible sound is. I am getting ready to pull the heads and take a look, what do you guy's think is up. I know the springs are fine and I do not think I have bent pushrods because you could feel play if they were bent and they all have the correct amount of preload. Shoot me some ideals on what to look for with this thing. Oh the rockers and everything is visually intact and the sound is definitely coming from the upper part of the driver’s side head towards the back.

 

Recently installed converter? I'd check the bolts to be sure they're tight, not bottomed out from being too long but tight and holding the flexplate. Then check for exhaust leaks, loose spark plugs, if nothing there pull the trans and check for a cracked flexplate.

It does not matter if it has 28 miles on it and no track passes something is making a noise.

 

The noise is defiantly coming from the top of the motor driver’s side head. The Trans is 100% fine. The converter has been installed for 1500 miles by the way. The noise just started at the track just like I stated above. I have not put any modification on in the last 1500 miles. I know what at exhaust leak sounds like and same with intake leaks. Also it is defiantly not the plugs because they are all tight and not arcing.
Well I may post up a video later but I all ready know what to look for or at least what to inspect and it looks like I have all ready covered the basic problems it could be. My guess is a pushrod, rocker, Lifter or a cam lobe so Ill start with that.

 

It has to do with the valve train. So I say get a stethoscope and find out exactly what cylinder its coming from. Then work from there. It sounds like you may have bent a pushrod, or something happened with one of your lifters.

 

Ok I played with the car for awhile today. I still have not figured out the problem. I pulled the valve covers and pulled the pushrods and rockers out. The rockers look fine and so do the pushrods although they are stock crap and have allot of cast flashing making it hard to determine if there is a bend. I ended up measuring them with a dial caliper and they are all within .004 of each other. I then put it all back together and checked the vacuum and it was pulling a strong 19 so I know the valves are fine. Then I put the car in the air and got out the stethoscope and looked all over and could not pinpoint the noise. I decided to take look at the TC bolts and they are tight. So I ended up getting some sefoam and doing a full treatment and am going to change the oil and see what comes up. From what I can see it has to be a lifter or maybe even a wrist pin. Either way I can not believe that a 30,000 mile stock engine car that has been babied for 26,000 miles is giving me crap but oh well. Time to pull the dam heads.

 

my car is giving me a ticking kind of noise too. but only when i'm going like 5-10mph... and it's just every once in awhile and just one "ta ting" kind of noise.... but mine is coming from the rear end. The guy at Advanced auto says I have a rock in my exhaust. HOW THE HELL!? I dont believe him....

a friend of mine thinks it could be a U joint goin bad. Who knows.

It usually does it when I put it in gear or slow down for a stop sign... god its ANNOYING!! It just started it tonight tho. I just put a flowmaster catback on, so maybe something is lose? ahhh! I wish you luck man

 

Heres my 2002 when it was an A4 with 25,000 miles and NO track passes removed.AVI
The dealer replaced all the lifters under warranty, still makes the noise to this day with 49,000 on it and a few hard runs and track passes. Noise hasn't changed at all in all that time.
I wouldn't dismiss a converter problem either. What kind of converter and intake did you just put on it?
You seem to be against my advice, sorry if I try, at least it's free.

 

I am not ageist you're advice. I even checked the TC bolts because when I got under the car the noise was just as loud as topside. I put on a LS6 intake and a yank SS3600 converter. I do not have a tune and have 1500 miles on those mods before problems started. I also checked all the plugs and exhaust for leaks and can not find any leaks although when I put the stethoscope the noise is the loudest when I put the stethoscope on the exhaust. Thanks for the help by the way guys.

 

dude it sounds like you spun an bearing. either a main bearing or a rod bearing. i helped work on my buddies car that was making that same sound that your describing. i would look there. if it sounds like its ticking and gets worse when you add a little gas. then i think you spun a bearing. good luck keep us posted!

 

Has your oil pressure dropped any? I would have to say that maybe something has happened to one of your lifters. Maybe time to just replace those.

 

The oil pressure has not dropped any. I changed the oil and the oil was SPOTLESS so I do not believe that it is a bearing. I took a video of the noise but I have no way to get the video onto the computer because it is an older camcorder. Oh and it is defiantly not just “another noisy LS1” unless you car hear these motors ticking at idle with hood shut and in the car driving with the windows up. I am going to look around for the source some more because I don’t want to tear the head off to get to the lifters and find it was not the problem.

 

TTT, I am out of ideals and I need some more advice or things to try

I am still having the problem. I have brought the car to a couple local mechanics that are well know for building LS1 and they do not know what it could be either. Some think it could be a lifter but you would think there would be metal in the oil if the lifter spun or you would be able to push the pushrod down and you can't with my car. I changed the pushrods and that changed the noise of the sound. Instead of the noise sounding like a metallic tick it now sounds like a knock and you can hear it at idle loudly but seams to go away at above 2k. I put the stock pushrods back in to see if the sound would go back to the previous sound and it did not. Also right when I put the new pushrods in and started the car it was making this horrible knocking sound like all the valves were hitting the pistons so I swapped the stock pushrods back in and it still did the horrible knocking sound for about 15 seconds and then it smoothened out to the less noticeable ticking sound. The car is also misfiring and wanting to stall at idle but seams to run fine past 2k with the exception of it pulling timing because of the knock, it feel's fine

 

It running bad is probably because the knock sensor is detecting the noise and goofing with the timing. When I spun a rod bearing and it would get loud the car would pull timing and would act totally stupid. It tended to stall easily too. My oil PSI had dropped quite a bit though.

The fact that this happened after your race runs leads me to believe the stress damaged it, somewhere. If you are up to it I'd start pulling lifters and see if they look OK.

 

Are you absolutely sure you didn't drop/leave anything in the intake tract? I would pull the intake since the noise started after that and you ruled out the TC.