Finally got around to installing AFR heads that have been sitting in the garage for the last year. My mechanic is a local shop with good rep and lots of experience with hi po LS1. Picked up car, drove 30 miles to get it home. Got home and it leaked oil all over the driveway and exhaust. Took it back to shop and turned out that a valve cover gasket had gotten crimped and leaked. OK, fine, problem solved. Pick up car again, bring home and park it. Sat for a couple days. Checked a couple days later for leaks, before I pulled it out, and no leaks.

Next, I started car up, backed it out and hear a loud ticking sound like somethings hitting valve covers, but after about 5 seconds or so it goes away. I drive off slowly, and after about 3 miles the SES light comes on. I continue to my destination about 3 more miles, complete my errand then drive home. I drive the car gently, and never get on it the whole night. The light never came on prior to this, and the car had about 65 miles on the head install.

My question revolves around what could cause the SES light? I dont have a way to check the codes without taking it to a shop. could the loud valve train noise have caused the knock sensor to throw a code? or could it be caused by the engine being lean, due to the AFR heads being put on. My mechanic advised when I first picked it up after the heads were installed (prior to the SES light, its Sat, so i cant talk to them until Mon), that since the car had been tuned on a dyno, after the cam/header install, it would not be necessary to retune it, because it would be within its operating perameters. I spoke to a guy at PCM for Less about a retune also (no codes at the time) and he also advised that the retune would make it run better, but there would only be small gains, because if the prior dyno tune were good, the car would be driveable. Thanks for any input.

 

In my area the local autozone will pull the codes for you for free with thier little code reader. They really cant give you much of a diagnostic but at least you would have an idea of whats going on. From what you described it almost sounds like you may have had a rocker arm come loose. Does is seem like the engine is missfiring?

 

+1 for autozone or advance for pulling codes.

 

I happen to catch the title of this thread....I dont frequent this section very often.

First off, loud ticking and then an SES light means something bad just happened. I would immediatly be pulling both valve covers and carefully inspecting all the valvetrain components. What caused the loud ticking??....you dont just chalk that up as a normal occurence because it stopped. Maybe a rocker or a valvespring broke....bent pushrod perhaps. Do some digging....my guess is your SES light is on because of a misfire code triggering it. Do some digging till you find the cause of the tick (hopefully).

Secondly, a major change in the engines ability to process air in and out (with a very efficient cylinder head swap) will most certainly require a retune, not only to make more power and take better advantage of the new heads, but also to add to reliability having the proper A/F ratios (and a more optimized timing map) without the computer having to pull or add a bunch of fuel to keep things close (which changes your WOT fueling as well). You need a proper tune on a chassis dyno with a calibrated wideband....not some canned tune or a copy of a tune from a "similar" vehicle. There are simply way to many variables from one set-up to another. I dont have time to list them all but there are literally dozens.

Now unfortunately that means your paying for tuning twice, but at this point you really dont have much of a choice. I would have encouraged you to install all your mods at once and optimized everything at the same time....

Good luck....do some digging on the loud tapping noise....thats not normal and because it "went away" doesnt mean you can overlook it. Not checking into it may lead to bigger more costly problems ahead. Find and isolate the potential cause of the valvetrain noise before you go to the dyno and do some WOT tuning.

Tony

 

So ... should I go with Trickflow or Dart?

 

What thread do you think you are posting in?

 

the ticking doesn't necessarily mean that some thing has gone bad. Check your oil level and make sure its up to par. I've seen a bunch of times that this is caused by cheap oil filters that won't hold drainback when sitting for a long time.

 

I think you definatly want to get a retune, but only after you find the cause of the engine light and/or engine noise. Yes, with the new heads your car is still in 'operating parameters' but it still isn't correct. If you add high-flow heads to the setup, you are getting more air in the cylinder without adding extra fuel. That means you are running more lean than before. Lean is not good. Not only that but you aren't getting all you can out of those expensive heads if the car isn't retuned with them on. Why spend all that money on heads and not try to get everything you can out of them?

 

To Tony and the rest of you guys, thanks very much for the input. Very sound advice...Tony, hopefully you will also read this again, as I may send you a PM.