Hello everyone,
I've recently rebuilt the motor for my 2000 Camaro, all new bearings, new pistons, and new rings. I measured the cylinders and piston clearances and bearing clearances, made sure everything was in spec.

After a few days of troubleshooting other problems (bad fuel and 2 bad fuel injectors) i noticed it was getting harder to crank by hand and by the starter, so before getting firing it up I decided to take a look at the oil since I couldn't get it to build any pressure. When I pulled the oil plug water poured out for a few seconds before it was followed by oil. The oil filter was nothing but water. After more troubleshooting, I found out that my pcv gasket was bad and let rainwater in. After doing a couple of flushes, the oil now looks much better and I was able to build 60-70psi pressure.

However, after getting it to start up a few days later I noticed this really loud ticking noise. It's coming from the front of the engine, but I can't point out exactly where. I'm trying to find out what it is, I'm thinking it might be the lifter tick or rod knock but it almost sounds too fast. I'm starting to think it could be the timing chain, I didn't replace it and I believe it's the original at 155k miles, I only replaced the tensioner since it was worn down quite a bit. I've attached a video of it. I appreciate any help.

I should add there is no knock code, but I am getting a P0300 random misfire that I am also trying to isolate.

About the missing serpentine belt, I took it off because the ac compressor bearing is bad and I didn't want that rattling noise to impact the audio. I only had it running for a few seconds, started cold.

https://youtube.com/shorts/woOSZbU36Jk?feature=share

 

sounds like its coming from outside the engine at the balancer. may be the crank sensor or balancer is hitting something. I would remove the balancer and have a look.

 

I was thinking the same think this morning. I'll be removing the balancer today and running it to see if that's it. Thank you for the reply.

Edit #1:
I removed the harmonic balancer, went to start it up and it wouldn't start. I believe the shaft provides a seal for the oil pump as it wouldn't build much pressure, and it started leaking as soon as it did. So I can't say for sure that it is the balancer yet; however, I noticed a chip on the key slot on the balancer closest to the engine accompanied by the chipped metal in the groove and one of the metal splines was bent. The plastic shroud behind the balancer is loose at the bottom so maybe the balancer wobbling either hit that or caused it to hit the front cover while vibrating. When the engine was running it did appear as if the balancer was wobbling. Other than that nothing else seemed wrong.

It appears that new harmonic balancers for the 3800 are no longer available, aftermarket or OEM. So either junkyard or clean out the key slot, bend spline back (its very slightly bent), and pray it works and end up in a junkyard to get a good one when it doesn't inevitably.

Edit #2:
I looked with a borescope to see if there was any damage or metal shards and verified there wasn't, cleaned up the key slot and straightened the splines. Cranked it over and the loud fast ticking was gone. I didn't want to run it too long since I'm still waiting on the A/C Compressor bearing, but I will update if the noise is still present. Do you suggest I still make a trip and et a balancer from the junkyard?