tapping sound...please help:(
 

i have had this tapping sound that i started hearing about 250 miles after my heads/cam swap. it hasnt gotten any louder since the swap, but its driving me nuts to find out what it is. the weirdest thing about it is, its louder after i get off of the highway,and its not loud at start-up, and i have changed the oil 2 times and found nothing on my drain plug or even inside my filter. everyone keeps telling me its most likely a piston, or rod(not a lifter) but i dont know what else to check.the car still pulls like a mofo, but i want to spray it with no worries...anymore advice? pull the heads? check my sleeves and lifter?

Hmm... not a good thing. I think you need to give some more information on the "tapping" sound. There are a lot of things that can go tap tap in an engine. Some have different sounds, higher or lower in pitch. An exhaust leak can even cause a tapping or ticking sound.

Can you tell where it's coming from? How loud is it? Driver side, pass. side? Does the tap increase or decrease with engine RPM? It just doesn't sound logical to me how heads/cam affect the pistons and rods. That's like saying, "My new headers must have caused me to spin that bearing”. The only other thing I can think of right now are the heads. Did you get them from a reputable place? Maybe somehow a valve/seat was cut wrong and when the valve closes it's creating excess noise. I'm not sure on that, since you said it runs great. I'd say it would have to be something in the heads or valve train; you didn't touch the bottom end...


Bump to the top...

well the one thing that im trying to figure out is...why it makes more noise after i get off of the highway. its kinda high pitched, most noticeable at about 1500 rpms and when the car revs down between shifts when im driving really slow. i have seen posts where people had spun bearing and a bad #1 piston..theres soo many things that make this light tapping sound. but in my case, it seems to be from the top end but its hard to tell what side...i guess its more pronounced on the pass. side. i guess the heads will come off in order to find out

Start pulling belts off first before you start pulling heads. I had a sound coming from the passenger side that sounded just like a rocker arm clattering, turned out to be the a/c clutch pulley. Might be something simple...maybe.

maybe you have a loose rocker arm. i would pull the covers and check those. i had to after my cam swap because i could hear a slight tapping, and i had a loose one. tightened it up and t hasnt been an issue. thats something i would at least check before pulling the heads. another thing might be pushrods. just a few things to consider

I also vote for loose rocker arm or collapsed lifter, thoes are the most likley things to go wrong after that swap.

And if you really suspect a bearing going, its easy to drop the oil pan to check for metal.