BrentC5Z

'01 Z bought a couple week ago with 33K miles. After the oil change (10W-30 Mobil 1) This terrible tick coming from what sounds like #1 cyl.
It doesn't do it at first start up. Just after a few minutes of warm up & NEVER goes away. I've even drained a qt & replaced with Lucas Syn oil stabilizer. No change...
The first vid is start up after 2 days of sitting. I stopped the camera, removed the LH FRC, and filmed part 2. You'll notice it sounds fine for the first minute, then progressively gets worse. I plan to pull the LH valve cover tonight & inspect the rockers, possibly pushrods too. After doing extensive searching on the forums & web, the only thing I've come up with is the oil pump o-ring bullletin. Seems strange I put 400 miles on the car before this started though. The engine is stock and the exhaust hasn't been touched pre-cats.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yteakUCdk5I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mb7vojFf8g

espz06

I'm so sorry to hear that. It brings back horrible memories. That is an expensive sound in those videos. My tick was a messed up roller tip on the lifter and a flatened cam.... $9000 and a new engine later....

I hope for the best for you my friend!

BrentC5Z

espz06, How did your car run? Mine runs like a stripped *** ape & has no drivability issues. Just the annoying sound that I fear will lead to greater problems if it continues to get driven without repair.

espz06

It felt fine. No symptoms other than the sound, just like you. I'll have to find a pic of the roller tip on the lifter. It was chunked out pretty nicely. Not sure if it was a metal mismatch, or heavy spring pressure, but it flattned the lobes on the cam (all aftermarket by the way, and done by previous owner). The $$$ come from the fact that the lifters are harder to get to on these engines. It's great when you want to swap a cam without having to worry about lifters falling like most motors, but when a lifter goes bad....it sucks.

dankhts

Had a similar problem with mine, collapsed lifter, eventually wouldn't pump up anymore, had to pull it apart, so ended up doing heads/cam/etc etc .... would've left it stock otherwise...and it DOES get expensive!! G/L!

espz06

I hope someone can chime in with some happy story or good advice, but a bad lifter means pulling the head. If you can do it yourself, you won't be out much money. If you have a shop do it, you're in the bucks before you even find out the problem!

The good news is this is the PERFECT time to get MOD fever!!!! Ok...not sure if that's really good news or not, but I'm trying!

JohnJ@Texas-Speed

Definately sounds like a collapsed lifter to me. I would get that fixed ASAP because the longer it goes the more of a chance it has to destroy the cam and possibly get stuck in the block. A set of LS7 lifters would fix the issues you are seeing.

BrentC5Z

John, that's the plan if needed. Fortunately I can do the work. It's been a few years since my last engine build. I'm assuming a forum vendor stocks the lifters...

JohnJ@Texas-Speed

Yes, lots of vendors will keep them in stock. We have them in stock for $140 a set right now.

LoneStarFRC

Have you performed a compression check and a cylinder leak-down test? If you have a collapsed lifter, they might be very helpful, if not revealing. Pull the valve cover off and check for any signs of rocker looseness or damage (fulcrum needle bearings), maybe even a rocker bolt backing out.

Don't completely rule out an exhaust leak either.

HTH

Whistler

Typically an exhaust leak will be oulder whaen cold and lighten up slightly as the parts get hot and expand.

Take the oil filter and cut it open to look for glitter. If it looks clean then its almost certainly a lifter.. the previous owner may have had a thicker oil in the engine to mask the problem and your switch to 10-30 revealed the noise.

If the filter inspection reveals metallic particles when you take it out in the sun, you may want to dig a little further. Good luck with it!! Time for ported heads!

BrentC5Z

Well the #1 intake rocker was VERY loose & sloppy. Also the pushrod dropped about 1/8" deeper in the hole than the rest of them. Surprisingly, all of the rockers are pretty loose internally on their pivot shafts. I was really expecting them to feel much more solid on the needle bearings.

dankhts

yep! that's how mine was, pulled the head to check it out, saw the bad lifter, pulled the cam out to check it as well, but it was OK, figured no sense in putting the stock cam back in - better get 1 with bigger bumps on it, then figured no sense in putting stock heads back on with a big cam, so got some BIG UNS to put on, then got the LS7 lifters, hardened push rods, long tubes with high flow cats, cat back exhaust, Yella Terra rollers, high volume oil pump, timing chain set, CAI, etc etc etc.... I think the lifter noise went away eventually! maybe still there, but car so loud now can't hear it! not a cheap fix when you get carried away, but the extra 125hp at the wheels helps make me feel a bit better...rear tire wear seems to be an issue now though....always something with these vettes!

BrentC5Z

D, That's hilarious! Thanks for the reply. I spoke to John @ texas speed & performance and started the list. Should have it torn down this weekend waiting on the parts. LS7 lifters, 7.375 pushrods & gaskets. I'm seriously going to try and stop there. I'd like to have it back up and running before it even gets an Oklahoma tag on it!

I'll keep this post updated with picks of the progress. Most on here never get tired of photo journals... Including me!

BrentC5Z

Well, Mystery solved.
Strange little metal piece in the lifter pocket spelled bad news...







So the cam is toast too...

espz06

Ouch! Great pics though! So what cam are you going with? You know you have to do a little bit better than stock, even if it's just GM's "hot cam"....

Eric D

Brent87LT1,

Not sure who you purchased your vette from but you might want to go back and have a talk with them. What you have happen well beofore you got it. Was this car stock or has it been mod'd?

Also, as far as new lifters go, don't pay extra for "LS7" lifters. All current LSx lifters are the same.

Nice looking car, sorry you have this trouble right off the bat..

BrentC5Z

The motor was stock & had NO ticking sound when purchased.
Looks like an un-planned cam upgrade is in the cards now...

099blancoss

Was it turned in the tray?

KCvetteowner

What happens when your wife comes home and says: "Honey, the car started making this real loud sound yesterday and it's still doing it."



It appears your lifter turned, causing the roller to get a flat spot. The plastic tray the lifter sits in is supposed to keep it from turning so you might inspect your tray to understand how it failed.

Two options are:
1) replace the lifter trays and hope they don't fail again
2) install link-bar lifters and remove the trays and never have to worry about a lifter turning again.

I installed new trays in my 416ci LS3 with Morel lifters. Next time I'm in there I'm going to install link-bar lifters for added piece of mind.