baker440ex

Guys im posted up on another site but wanted some advice from the thirdgen specific experts. Got a noise after doing a cam swap (details on this site in a previous thread of mine) took a lot of things apart so I'm having trouble identifying this noise. Sounds like marbles in a mason jar. I'm going to post a video. In this video base timing is only at 6 with vac adv capped off. Afterwards I retarded the timing a couple of degrees which i think seemed to help but before the tear down I was running 12 or more and also had vac advance plugged in with no issue. Motor seems to run hot but I cant tell for sure. The gauge only reads 140 or so. I have been flushing the cooling system from what had appeared to be oily foam and I'm not sure if I have an air lock. I did do a block sniff test and it passes. The hoses are all hot, really hot. I have back flushed with hose water from various how inlets and continously flush out dirty water. It does seem to be getting better. My exhaust was rubbing underneath in a few places but I temporarially fixed it by wedging cork gasket material in the right spots. What I have sounds like detonation or spark knock? Marbles in a jar. Only right as the motor fires up and then when revved at 3000. Listen close to the video. I have not driven it yet but did do a sort of in gear brake stand at 1500 rpm or so unable to produce the noise. https://youtu.be/Sgy0kMYAul4

midias

Couple questions, what cam?
What type of lifter?
What rockers?
How did you adjust the rockers?
Did you try doing it with them running?
What springs?
How did you determine push rod length?

A couple thoughts, your base timing seems super low for a performance cam. It makes me think something is out of alignment or installed wrong.
It is hard to place the noise but it does sound like it is coming from the top end. Maybe pull the cover and run without it and check and make sure everything is being oiled and listen to each rocker nut with a screwdriver.

midias

Something else I just noticed in your other video and could not tell in the one you posted. Are your belts installed? In your one video they are not and you really want your water pump to be spinning

baker440ex

Hey Midias thanks for the response. It's the ramjet 395 roller cam in an 87 factory roller motor. Springs and roller chain were upgraded with help from tech department over at Summit. They had verified for me the chain would clear block and cover and using a pipe to listen on the cover it seems to sound normal to me. Pushrods are stock. Lifters and rockers are all stock. Valve lash was adjusted according to Chilton procedure, at tdc compression stroke it gives you the ones to adjust, then rotate balancer 360 and it gives you the other half. One full turn of lock nut after zero lash cold it says no further adjustment is necessary. I tried this twice. I will however take your advice and remove the valve covers and run it that way. Hopefully if there was an issue in this department i would notice something obvious? The belts are on in the videos, only in that one video where you noticed it was off is the only time and that is on a 45 second cold start to try and eliminate pulleys. I think this actually did seem to help at first but I would still get the noise at start up and like you said I can't really run it any longer without the water pump functioning but all pulleys felt tight. I am worried it is running hot despite my temp gauge seems to be functioning. The motor seems to get hot real fast which i may be wrong but cant seem to recall being normal? How hot should should my inlet and outlet hose be? I am having trouble revving the motor (only time it makes noise) and listening with the pipe at the same time. Thanks again for the response trying to get as much insight as I can over the weekend while I have the time to tear into this. Also I definitely agree timing seems super low at 6* base bit further lowering it seemed to help with the noise although even in neutral it seemed to run like a dog. Oil pressure is normal btw.

baker440ex

Another thing which has me confused, and correct me if im wrong here but in trying to capture the noise it is making it doesnt seem to be correlated to rpm speed and as far as I can tell only does it around 3000 give or take a couple hundred? Link of video I posted in this thread is the most distinct I have been able to capture.

midias

Is your water pump brand new? I just had a weird issue with my car quest ones.
https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/cool...hot-while.html

If your only gauge is in the manifold I would suggest you try a sensor in the head or get an IR heat gun out when I had my issue my head was reading about 80F higher than the manifold. You can also try removing the thermostat to see if that helps the pressure build up or maybe removes a bubble from the system.

While cruising your upper hose should be about the same as your thermostat the lower should be a bit colder. At hot idle the upper should be about the same as your fan switch. Lower a bit colder.

I think your next best bet is to pull the covers and listen to the rocker nuts. A warm adjust can do wonders too but start there. If you cannot determine where it is or even top or bottom of the motor it may be time to pull the manifold

baker440ex

Thanks again for the response Midias. My temp sender is in the head. The water pump is not new And I have never replaced it in the 6 years I have owned it (has only been driven about 20k in those 6 years) It did sit dry on my bench for about 3 weeks during the swap and I did paint it. It's not weeping. I did remove my thermostat just to eliminate that as an issue. Both upper and lower hoses are very very hot to the touch. I guess that would indicate there is no blockage? I do not own an IR gun but if I got one I do not know what certain components are supposed to normally read.

I just got home from work with some prestone flush chemical, new antifreeze and some distilled water. I'm also gonna check all exhaust bolts, double check my firing order, hook up vac advance, pull valve covers and watch her run. I will post back with results

Fast355

iTrader: (2)

In the video of it running without the belts it seems to have a hell of a miss. I would double and trippple check the firing order. All to easy to get the plug wires ESPECIALLY for 5 and 7 swapped.

baker440ex

Hey Fast355. Yes it sure does sound that way. On that video without the belt that is a dead cold start so maybe that's why? I triple checked my firing order hoping i had messed it up but it is correct. The wires are brand new and I have to admit in some cases they were hard to get an audible "click" when seating to terminals but I triple checked that as well so maybe I had something going on there. Plugs, cap and rotor are all new by the way. The plugs are the delco R43TS gapped at .045
I wasn't able to make much progress tonight.... I tightened my header bolts, which I was able to get a little bit out of, and also my collector flange bolts, and then all the clamps were already tight. I hooked up my vac advance and set my timing again around 10* at idle. I removed the flex plate inspection cover and it does appear to spin straight when running. I was not able to gas it while watching the flex plate/torque converter. I did pull the valve cover on the drivers side and everything looks normal as far as i can tell. i seemed to be getting oil as all of the rockers on the valve side were pooling up with it. I did not move to passenger side as it was beginning to rain at this point.
Coolant is dark brown again. It was also foaming up again. My upper and lower hoses are still extremely hot and my motor also feels really hot. I burned some of the wire loom (plastic sleeve) behind my passenger head, also burned fan switch plastic connector, the shrink sleeve on my spark plug boots, cylinder 6 and 8, and on the drivers side put a brown 2 1/2" cigar shaped burn mark in the plastic sleeve covering the driver shaft. All of this stuff rides close to the headers but was always set up this way with the same headers no problem. Only difference now Is Header Paint, and valve cover and intake paint. Still baffled by this...The motor seems extremely hot in my opinion despite the gauge reading a safe 150-160 slowly warming up. In the process of flushing radiator again. This car has always had clean fluid. I'm not sure if somehow it's cross leaking with the trans cooler from taking the radiator out, or somehow I spilled oil inside of it (possible, I guess)
I was able to have the wife start the car several times (right at start up it would make the noise the best) as i poked around with a metal pipe to my ear. I was not able to identify where sound Is coming from. Everywhere on the motor I put the pipe sounds normal. I do hear valve tapping but sounds normal to the best of my judgement. Right now It is making it really good at start up. I just had her start it and shut it off, start it and shut it off. I could almost swear it's exhaust but can't find anywhere it's rubbing. This video captures it real good. (Sound 2 video - 9 second start up) I just watched it over and over with my laptop hooked to my stereo receiver and I'm stumped...Trying to find comparable examples on youtube and any type of lifter knock, bad bearings, broken flexplate etc I could find is all audible at Idle consistently tapping with Rpms, which I do not seem to have.

Fast355

iTrader: (2)

I would pull one valve cover at a time and do a running valve adjustment. Loosen the rockers one at a time until they start ticking. Then tighten them just enough to to make the tick stop. Move to the next one. Once you are done with the whole bank. Shut the engine down and tighten them all 1-turn. Put the valve cover on and move to the other side.

I would honestly rule out bearing and piston noise since I am assuming it was quiet before the swap. Might check for a broken spring.

baker440ex

Hey Fast355 yes it was running great before the swap. Just wanted more power. I did take a lot of things apart, including the exhaust, the transmission was out, torque converter, flex plate, etc. Everything on the top and the front of the motor. I am definitely hoping it is something stupid.

Springs are brand new...They're trick flows that went with the cam. Look just like the ones I pulled out. But if it was broken spring I would be able to see it?

Fast355

iTrader: (2)

That cam idles very smooth in both a 305 and 350. I would try the running valve adjustment and see where that gets you.

baker440ex

Hey guys. Super confused right now. Just took it out for a spin and it runs great. Mid throttle, full throttle, everything. Still makes the noise on startup (best example at this point is "Sound 2") and under a load on the street I cant hear anything.
I adjusted the valves for a third time today, this time using the up-and-down method, went a hair on the loose side and then added a half turn (not a full turn like the book says) I am able to hear the valves when driving (probably listening for it as well) And they do seem slightly noisier than before the swap, also right now probably a hair on the loose side, but at this point I don't think valve adjustment is my issue at all.
Sounds like rear of the motor, maybe transmission area, low, like underneath the car.
Also ran the prestone flush kit. I did the chemical clean and then the backflush, followed all directions. I don't have my heater wired up right now so I just bypassed the heater core and installed the T between the water pump and Intake fitting. Unless I am picking up oil off the ground (very possible) there seems to be an oily trail in the water I flushed out. Mostly just a bunch of brown water. So I'm a little worried about the transmission possibility but as of right now my dipstick looks clean...I'm gonna run the car again tomorrow for a while and then see what the inside of the radiator looks like I guess.
Only other thing, When I Decel in second from a high rpm Im getting a lot of popping, which I dont exactly mind but isn't this a sign of a lean condition? Could that be why I think the motor feels hot? Maybe time to pull the carb.
So what do you guys think? On a positive note the car does seem to have more power. I want to figure out this noise in the worst way but at this point I dont know where or what to look for.

GeneralDisorder

iTrader: (1)

The problem with continually adjusting the valves is that the lifters already had preload when you started out unless they were removed and fully inflated manually.... thus every time you adjust them unless you do it with the engine running you are starting from a partially compressed state. This results in the lifter being more and more "preloaded" - you lose piston travel and you get improper rocker geometry in the process.

It takes oil pressure to inflate the lifter. So adjustment needs to be done very carefully if done when no oil pressure is present. Or the lifters need to be manually inflated or the engine running durring adjustment.

A whole turn of preload is quite a bit. I will typically only do about 1/8 to 1/4 turn of preload when adjusting with engine off and lifters somewhere in the middle of their travel.

GD

baker440ex

Thanks for the advice GeneralDisorder. Done playing with the lifters as of right now I would assume they would make noise constantly if they were way out of whack.
Been driving the vehicle all day, been hard on it at times. Only makes the "belt-style squeal" on start up, promptly goes right away (belts have been eliminated). One occasion I took a hard left and gassed it hard and it made the noise for a second. What could possibly make this noise on start up?

GeneralDisorder

iTrader: (1)

Have you run it with all the belts removed? It does sound a bit like a slipping accesory belt.

GD

baker440ex

Yes it has been run briefly with belts removed.

Been driving it seems to run awesome. The exhaust is loud so not sure if I can hear it under a load with road noise etc, like at wot the exhaust is too loud to hear anything else. But I hear it every time I start it for a moment and then the other day going through town still warming up it did it between 2nd and 3rd shift but only did it that once. Also when she starts it i can hear it better under the .ca than over the top of the motor

baker440ex

Guys I need some advice. I did the exhaust test where you put a shop vac on blow and tape it to the tailpipe. I sprayed my connections with soapy water and had leaks at all my clamps (3 reused band clamps the rest is welded where i had room) and leaks on my headers in the middle holes behind the flanges. How much leakage is normal, if any? I definitely got everything tighter than it was before the build. The header gaskets are the mister gasket $25 black/dark grey ones off the shelf at oreillys which i was reluctant to use but they weren't able to help me locate anything else. After I tightened the clamps as tight as they would go and also retightened the manifolds the noise at startup was still audible but it did improve. I still have leaks. What is a good manifold gasket and I'm assuming zero leakage should be evident using this test?

GeneralDisorder

iTrader: (1)

http://catalog.remflex.com/

GD