You all probably know what I am talking about, and if not then let me explain. You know when you start the car then accel the engine ticks... it drives me insane, literally! Anyway, is there anyway to get rid of the tick other than swapping out the 305? Please say there is...

 

is the lash correct on the valve train?

 

My friends 86 Caprice with 100k on the 305 does it but my 87 Cutlass with 140k on the 305 doesn't. I think it has something to do with his car having been ran out of oil twice cause of a leaking rear main seal and also i've seen him rev the crap out of his car when it was still cold. Don't think thats good for the lifters at all.

I really think its usually only on engines that have been abused. FYI I've driven my car pretty hard quite often and still no lifter tick. One thing that helps though, I always plug the car in when the weather gets really cold here, starting with thick oil is pretty hard on lifters i think.

 

You need to find out what is causing the tick first. Could be a lifter, rocker arm, bearing, lack of oil pressure somewhere, an exhaust leak, injector ticking, detonation etc etc...

 

I have the same problem,but it has only gotten worse.First I thought it was the injectors.It started raining heavly and water got in behind the scope and the car started missing.I hit the gas and it it went boom with alittle light.Now the ticking is a little louder.Gonna do a tune up to see if it makes mine go away.

 

Jase let me know what happens and if you get rid of it tell me exactly what u did

 

I found out what my tick was.The no.5 cylinder was tapping because of my plat. plug was wasted.I mean the top of the plug was inside the wire and you could turn the rest of the plug and see the tip of the electrobe move around.changed the plug and wire and problem solved.

 

What "tick"? I've got a small load of Chevys, and I'm not sure what you're talking about. The only "ticks" I hear are the injectors clicking at a low, quiet idle. If you have a ticking noise, you have a problem. They certainly aren't designed that way.

 

could it be an exhaust leak? Maybe

 

It could be lots of things. An exhaust leak, valve train noise, detonation, cracked ring, or who knows what. But it isn't normal.

A little better description might be helpful. Does it happen all the time? Only when hot? Cold? Under load? At idle?

 

I know the “tick” you are talking about. It has the same pitch as a sparkplug wire that is arcing to metal. I found out it was a broken exhaust valve seal on my “89” L98.
It is a little rubber ring that sits under the plastic oil splash cup. You can pull the valve cover off the side that is making the noise and look at the valve springs if one of them has evidence of carbon that is the valve seal that is leaking. The whole set of seals cost about $4.00. If you don’t have access to compressed air to hold the valve up while you change the seal you can use a nylon rope and feed it in through the spark plug hole (make sure the piston is at TDC). I change both the seals for each cylinder I am doing. It is common in the pushrod engines.