Hi im new to the board and i have a 85 camaro with an lg4 engine, I was driving like an idiot yesterday and all of a sudden my engine started pinging real loud. So I changed the oil and pulled the valve covers and looked at all of the lifters and none of them are bent, so i will be pulling the heads tomarrow and i was wondering before i go through all that work, if it could be something else other than the valves? The ping speeds up when giving the engine throttle and sometimes it is erratic at idle any advice would be appreciated

 

i have more like a knock in my engine that sounds like them symptoms and i heard it could be the flexplate so im pulling the tranny this week to replace it. Check that out to see if ya got a crack or not.

 

dont pull the heads just yet. It is very unlikely that you bent a valve w/o being able to see it when pulling the valve covers.

First... what is your oil pressure now?

If it's normal, then do you have headers? If so, check your header gaskets.

If not:

Firstly take a mechanic's stethescope (or a piece of heater hose) and listen around the motor to determine approximately where the sound is coming from.

Take your flexplate inspection plate off and make sure that the flexplate is not broken or anything of that sort.

I'd pull out all of the pushrods and roll them on something that you KNOW is perfectly flat, like a glass table or something. If any are bent, replace them.

Make sure that none of your rocker arm studs are lifting out.

Take your intake off and check the lifters

Make sure none of your rocker arms are mis-shapen or anything like that.



Note: Do these one at a time, obviously if you can find with the heater hose or stethescope where the sound is, then you dont have to take the intake off and such.

Reply back to the thread with details

 

Ok thanks guys ill give your suggestions a shot and get back to u with the results

 

Sometimes a small piece of hardware will drop down your intake and get lodged in the piston dome and make the noise you're describing.
If that happened, it would most likely be a piece from your carb. Check your carb and see if all the screws are all there.
Have you done any work on your car with the air cleaner removed lately?