A week ago I noticed a ticking sound from the inside of my car. I didn't think much of it because I thought it was associated with the PS pump, because as the pump got worse, this ticking showed up. And it was on the same side as the pump. But today I noticed it was still there (haven't driven her much since then). So I figured I'd try to isolated where the sound might be coming from. Unfortunately, it sounds like it's coming from under the valve cover. As I accelerate, the ticking goes faster. At idle, it stays a steady ticking noise. I was hoping it was just the pulley or something with the belt and other pulleys, but it sounds like it's closer to the top of the engine. And the only thing there would be what's under the valve cover...any ideas what it might be? The lifters are new...so a rocker arm or pushrod? Those weren't replaced in the build, just cleaned up and reused.

 

yeah, a rocker arm could be loose. my engine made a very similar ticking noise so i checked each rocker arm by taking the valve covers off and rotating the crank and checking to see if there is any play in the rocker arms.
sadly enough, that wasn't what was wrong with my engine. i had spun bearings(main and rod) and it sounded exactly like what you are describing.

 

yup, its either rocker or a main starting to go.. even a push rod may be slightly bent, therefore putting slack on a rocker

 

All my bearings are new though and should be good (should). The engine only has 4,000K miles on it now.

 

You're absolutely sure it's coming from under the valve cover, and it's not a noisy fuel injector or an exhaust manifold leak?

 

No I'm not 100% sure. I'm not that good at diagnosing stuff, that's why I leave it up to Case. I tell him what's going on and what I hear, and he can usually find what it is. But he was stuck at work all day, so I was trying to check it myself. It's coming from that area, the valve cover on the driver side. Somewhere in that region.

 

Being a newly built engine, you shouldn't have lifter noise unless he possibly had a rocker arm that was adjusted right on the verge of zero lash.
And that could depend on which adjustment procedure he followed.

 

Since you just rebuilt the engine, I would bet that you have a very small exhaust leak. Give the newly built engine several heating and cooling cycles and one of the exhaust manifold bolts could have worked loose.

Did you retorque the exhaust bolts after a week or so?

 

Well we took a look at her today. Pulled the valve cover off and everything looked fine. Everything was tight, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. So we're going to try giving her an oil change and using some thicker oil. There's a theory of maybe the bigger cam thinned out the oil. So I doubt that's going to solve it, but it's worth a shot. She needs her oil changed anyway.

 

camaro 69, the 3.8 uses a shaft mount style rocker arm, so there is no adjustment procedure that im aware of nor listed in the manual. it said to tighten them to a certain amount of foot pounds and that it didnt matter where the engine was firing order. of course i rotated them to tdc and rechecked them during the build, and today, still tight. there is some side to side play on the shaft when they arent under load, but it goes away once its on a lobe. i though maybe injector or exhaust leak, but its not. its definatly something in the valve train. the pass. side bank does it ever so slightly upon start up, but its cylinder 1 or 3 that is making the noise.

now, is there any clean way of running this engine with the valve cover off? it runs about 60-90 psi of oil pressure, im sure it will shoot everywhere. the noise is there hot or cold. were going to try using 10-40 oil first and see what that gets us