Hi, My 1983 z28 5.0 H.O. 4bbl has developed a new noise, never noticed before, can anyone help me with ideas that may help please. I live in Ca., and had to have my car smoged, it was running really good before I had it smoged, the mechanics had to do some adjuting of carb to get it to pass, it passed with no problems, but after I noiticed when you pushed down on acclerator, it hesitated, so I took it to my main mechanic, and he put it on the scope, said everything was fine, but that the timing was way off, he adjusted, runs really good now...but here is what is weird...it makes a noise that he and I agreed sounds like a noisy lifter, just one as far as we can tell, so he suggested that I put in an oil stabilizer, I did, it quieted it down some, but you can here it slightly. Can a timing adjustment cause this? The car has 72k original miles, and normally runs really great. I do not want to pull the engine to clean or replace one lifter, but will it hurt to run like it is?, and anything else that I could do to quiet it? thanks for any help, Dennis please email me:dennisgramm@verizon.net or post, appreciate

you don't have to pull the engine the best thing to do is change your oil and put in something that will clean gunk out of your engine - ask your mechanic what he suggests, and put some really good oil back in it's spot. i use mobil 1 10w30 in my car & 1 qt of lucas. here is what i think:

change your oil & filter... put whatever you normally put in it (lucas is optional), put some seafoam (any auto parts store has this... or B12) in the oil, and run the piss out of the car, either go down the highway, or sit in the driveway... but the driveway isn't as fun . change oil and put in some more lucas, it should settle it down...

IF IT DOESN'T:

what i would do is pull the intake. there are 10 bolts to this, 2 gaskets (3 if you count the thermostat gasket). you may have to take out the distributor to pull the intake - my v6 i had to. now is the fun part... after you pull the intake, you can either replace the gaskets and cut them where they need to be cut, or don't cut them and have your mechanic set the rocker arms. enable to have the gasket's go on "correctly" they say DO NOT CUT. so it's up to you. you can replace 1 lifter, or all 16, same with the pushrods. for my v6's, the lifters are 5.50 a piece, and the pushrods are 1.49 a piece. with that engine, it may be easier to just consider a rebuild (due to age). maybe the pistons and up?

Honestly, I would talk to your mechanic if i were you... and see what he thinks you should do.

on a side note, if you do pull the intake, on my car... there is a stud at the rear of the intake on the driver's side that has 2 nuts on it, and there was a set of wires attached to that nut. and there was a nut underneath that (caked on grime didn't let me see the other one). So double check before you pull the intake and make sure that all nuts and bolts are off!