someone please help fast!!!!!!

 

There are so many possibilities with your issue. Especially since your oil and temp gauges aren't working. Check your oil? Exhaust leak? Ever overheated that you know of? Does the tick come and go, does it get faster as you accelerate, does it only tick when it's cold/hot?

 

It gets louder the more i floor it but then it stops once i get into 5th gear at low rpm

 

Could be a rocker arrm needs tightening/loosening, could be an exhaust leak at manifolds.

Take a long screwdriver, place plastic end against ear, put metal tip against valve cover above each plug - if it's a rocker arm you'll hear which one (it'll be louder) - screwdriver transfers vibrations directly to ear drum (acts as a stethescope). If it's a rocker arm, get some cardboard, take valve cover off, place cardboard between edge of head and the fender to catch the squirting oil, and start the engine - make sure oil is squirting out of pushrod at that rocker arm, and tighten/loosen slowly gently 1/4 turn at a time until noise stops.

Can do same at exhaust manifold to pinpoint an exhaust leak - but try tightening the manifold nuts first to see if the tick goes away (try this before the rocker arm).

Oil guage - check wire to sender unit which is either on top of china wall by distributor or above oil filter.

Temp sender is driver side head between #1 and #3 spark plug - check that wire.

 

thanks alot for the help. in the case that a pushrod or two is possbly bent and i replace

how would i go about realigning the rockers?

 

Let us know what happens. As I'm kind of in the same boat.

 

so after about 896787 hours of work i finally got down to the bare bones. as it turns out the driver side of the engine all the push rods were bent so i replaced all of the push rods both passenger and driver just to get it out of the way incase. i even pulled the intake and wouldnt you know it. the lifters were extremely high out of there housing so i bought a set of them and replaced it all got it back together and the noise is gone. i even got to replace my gauge sending units for the oil and water.

the only problem i have now is this thing feels like it has no *** behind it and i want to fix that until i can get the 388 done. any suggestions?

 

Nice!! How they all became bent though? Either way glad you found the problem. I'll be doing the same thing to mine hopefully tomorrow morning!

 

Seems like you put a lot of hard work into it. Good job. It may be slow just because of all the miles. Is your timing adjusted right? Just a guess.

 

i have no idea. those rockers were a pita to get off though so they were probably all on way to tight. goodluck on yours!! let me know how that goes and if it works for you

 

i think it is. i still have to get around to changing plugs and wires. i got an msd coil and cap with the piece that goes on top i cant remember what that things called. now that i got the ticking to stop i noticed its making a popping noise so thats probably like a misfire or something.

 

???

Roller lifters, right?

 

Thats what i thought. But im not the origial owner so god only knows what people have done between 88 and now. The guy i bought it from got it for free in a deal and i think he said the owner before him had swapped in a carbed 305 but put the tbi top end on it. Sounds like a waste to me

 

So, what kind of lifters came out, why did you think they were sticking up too high and what did you put back in?

What did the old ones look like, specifically on the face that meets the cam?

 

how could you yourself have purchased replacement lifters and replaced them without knowing? I'm having trouble with the timeline of your posts and what you accomplished.

maybe I'm missing something here????????????

 

You may have not read something or i may have worded that wrong. I replaced lifters and the pushrods and the gauge sending units. As far as lifters go they looked normal they were not roller. i bought flat because i use to have an 89 firebird and that was roller so i know what roller looks like when i took it apart. I think with this is just a cam problem. Im might just end up pulling the 305 all together and putting my old 305 in from the 89 until the 388 is done(5 months)

 

Oil guage past 80 tells me this was a V6 originally.

 

i'm getting real confused, maybe it's age catching up with me.

You wrote this

"You may have not read something or i may have read that wrong.
I replaced lifters and the pushrods. I have replaced that and
the gauge sending units. As far as lifters go they looked
normal i know they were roller because i use to have an 89
firebird and that was roller when i took it apart. I think
with this is just a cam problem. Im might just end up pulling
the 305 all together and putting my old 305 in from the 89
until the 388 is done(5 months)"

but then edited your post. Did you put flat tappets onto a roller
cam? How many push rods were bent? Which cylinders? Did you check
your springs?

 

Well my issue isn't pushrods, but a sticky lifter! I'll get to it when I decide to change my cam or something.

 

i edited because i made some typos. the engine is not original. it was a carbed v8 with a tbi top end just like the other owner said. the guy before him swapped in a different engine. he does not know for sure what size. im not sure either but if it dies or i pull it ill get the numbers off engine and post them and yous all can verify whatever this thing is or isnt. to me a carbed engine swapped in with a tbi top end sounds like a waste. all the ones on driver side i think thats. 1 3 5 and 7. no i did not check springs because i dont plan on running this thing for another year.

you are all making it seem like im bsing. IM NOT!!! the idiots before that guy i bought this thing from screwed it all up. the only upside to the car is it has a magnaflow exhaust system on it.

 

So you know, you shouldn't install new flat tappet lifters on an old cam. The cam lobes can peel off. The original flat tappet cam, if that's what it was, was broken in on the original lifters. Once the flat tappet cam is broken in, each lifter has to stay with it's original lobe. Otherwise the lobes can peel.

If you installed flat tappet lifters on a roller cam, that would explain your lack of power. Also, the flat tappet lifters will destroy the billet roller cam very quickly.

 

I've kind of given up on this OP. He stated that he changed pushrods and lifters and then later states that he will do it later. I can't tell what has or hasn't been done and in a couple posts above this is a rant about how we're making it sound as if he's BS'ing. Actually, I'm just confused as heck because I can't tell what has or hasn't been done thus why i asked and you replied about flat tappets on a roller cam. The OP never responded to the question

 

well as confusing as this all may be ill sort it out for you.
1.car made a ticking sounds.
2.i went to go fix it.
3.come to find out push rods were all bent
4.my buddy helping me suggested we might as well take the intake off to check out the shape of the lifters.
5.we open it up and the engine is not a roller.
6.i asked the previous owners did he change the engine in this, he said no i never touched it being as he got it for free when he did some work not to mention the fact he is a mustang guy.
7.we checked the lifters they looked fine except for the fact that some of them were more than halfway out of there housing(idk what would cause that).
8.we then change the pushrods.
9. once we were done the car stopped the ticking sound.
10.just yesterday the previous owner called and told me the guy he got it from swapped the 305 out of his 84 trans am and since the 88 all ready had the tbi crap in it they just put all that on the carbed 305.


to me that seems like a huge waste especially considering they had removed the mech. fuel pump and all the other bullshit that comes with it.

in my other post i had swapped this back to carb and now it wont start once i let it roll out of drive way.

but sorry for any confusing i dont think i worded the other posts correctly and you probably didnt read it right. but there it is in a nutshell.

 

i never said i didnt know. i was saying thats what i thought. i had an 89 firebird last year and it was a roller and had tbi. this is an 88 with tbi and its flat. not sure where you got that i didnt know what lifters i bought. but i have confirmed and verified that the engine itself is from a different year trans am.

 

For the most part, GM went all roller in 87. The exception to this was the truck motors which, while the blocks were machined for roller cam, had flat tappet from the factory. Ive replaced these flat tappet cams with hyd rollers on a few truck motor rebuilds for a big improvement in performance. The 84 motor would have been flat tappet.

I dont know why your lifters would have been 1/2 way out of their bores, very weird. If they were stuck that way, you would have had misfires and possibly bent valves along with the bent push rods.

I hope you checked the new lifters for smooth fit in the bores. If I had any hope of not flattening a cam lobe in your case, it would be by installing the new lifters with lots of moly lube and breaking the lifters in on the old lobes with organic 30 weight, at 2,500 rpm for 20 minutes, just like a new cam. Its to your benefit that this is a mild OE cam, on stock springs. An aggressive flat tappet with stiff springs would never survive this.

 

Maybe this was because some of them were sitting on the lift portion of the lobe?

 

I'm not sure what the OP means by "half way out of their housing"? He says the noise is gone. I guess he's still loking for help with the low power issue but I'm not sure where were at right now.