so the lifters on the driver side of the motor tap. all rpms. usually goes away in the higher ones but when the motor is hot at idle its very noticeable. The cam and lifters are brand new, so are the heads and push rods. im using factory rocker arms due to valve cover clearance issues. so what could cause it? it did it with the old cam/lifters as well.

the motor has 3k miles on it. new cam about 1k

 

valves are not adjusted properly .

 

is it possible for them to loosen ? because all of them were set with the engine warm and running also by a person who has been building engines for a long time. Im not ruling it out by any means but i find it off that its been two sets of lifters and two different cams. The tapping is only on drivers side center two.

 

if you are still using OE rockers and nuts , probably they are worn out , they are self locking type .

 

yeah they are OE. I really dont think its the adjustments. I have adjusted them while the motor was running and the tapping never went away, i turned them tight to where it was effecting the motor and loosed them to where the rocker was loose and barely opening the valve and the tapping is still there and the same. here is a vid i took of the car running. not fully warm and after adding 2 quarts of oil....because for some reason its eating oil.

 

Have you checked to see if the header is leaking on that side? That sounds exactly like my engine. I have a small header leak on the back side of #7 cylinder.

 

thats what i thought at first but its a new gasket and all the bolts are tight and i checked it when it was still cold and nothing.

 

Have you tried the screwdriver-to-ear check to see if you can narrow down which cylinder the noise is coming from?

 

yes. its either 3 or 5 you can tell which one but i dont remember its been a few weeks since the car has ran and all. Right now its in storage but im just curious because i want to get it tuned in the spring but im not going to waste the money if the motor is a pos.. cause if it is its getting swapped for a 350

 

i would guess that an easy way to check if the header is leaking is to take a squirt bottle of some sort , start the engine cold and spray around the header with water to find the leak. i tried 3 difrent types of gaskets on mine before i finally found one that didnt leak. had the same problem with the clicking. or another option is the gasket at the collector. ive had alot of problems with those doing the same thing

 

I forgot about the collector gaskets. I found my header leak by feeling around the headers carefully with my hand while the engine was cold. You can easily feel the exhaust gasses squirting out the leak. If you smoke, you can always light one up and blow the smoke into the engine bay around the header. That would work too and may save you some nasty burns.

 

I have heddman headers, so no collector gaskets. That joint has never leaked ever its usually the passenger header gasket that leaks ( there is now a double gasket on that side). well ill try and start it up something this week or next but im pretty sure there is no exhaust leak. the tapping was louder before i added the oil as well. Its a brand new motor i still dont understand why its eating oil.