New rebuild .30 bottom end with LT4 hotcam,LT4 springs and keepers, Crane Cams 1.6 Gold alum roller rockers, new GM lifters,Isky Adjustable guides and SLP ported runners.

I put the RR's on before the new bottom end and it's had a lifter noise ever since. I've adjusted them using every method I found. Nothing stops this noise. I tried different valve covers so it's not rocker to VC contact.

I bought the pushrods from Skip White performance, I wonder if it's possible that the oiling hole is not large enough so there's no oil barrier on the rollers.

Here's a video I took tonight after I installed the Isky adjustable guideplates.

http://youtu.be/mVYujR0lgO0

I can't get the embed code to work

I'm about at my whits end with this..

Jeff

 

Roller rockers are going to make some noise; doubt it will ever be factory quiet.
Some louder than others for some reason.
Remember the injectors make noise too and can make it sound as if a few valves are out of adjustment.

Have a vid of mine the noise would scare you its so loud but theres nothing wrong with it.

 

if you're still running hydraulic lifters , adjust them with the engine running.

 

Did you check the valvetrain geometry to make sure the roller rocker is centered on the valvestem? I does sound like quite a racket.

 

i used to have a problem like that but it was an exhaust leak

 

I did not use a pushrod checker but I can see where the rocker has been making contact with the valve stem and it is a little outboard of center on most of them. Some of them show an almost triangular wear pattern.

Is it supposed to contact dead center? slightly inboard of center or is it good like it is?

I don't think it's an exhaust leak, I used Percy's gaskets on my hedman headers.. I don't really like the headers but they were what I could afford.

 

It should sweep across a portion of the valve stem, but it should average across the middle. Now that you are using guideplates, are you using the correct Crane rockers for guideplates? Not the stock self aligning ones.

 

My CC 1:6 roller tips are so loud I thought I had an exhaust leak!

 

Roller valve train has always had that singer sewing machine sound to me.

 

I did use non-SA rockers.

I know they are supposed to have some noise but this seems a little extreme to me. I really don't expect it to be factory quiet but I can hear it over the Magnaflows when driving. I had bought a different set of RR's from Skip White which I ended up getting rid of because I thought they were the source of this noise. I wonder / worry that the guy who rebuilt the heads may have screwed up.

The guy who built the bottom end put the heads and everything on. He said that although he didn't take the heads apart they looked ok.

I put the Isky plates on because the rockers did not seem to line up right with the valves when I had the comp plates installed.

Before -



After -



I was hopeful that this would resolve the issue...

 

May be camera angle but looks like some rollers are running off the tip of the valve

 

Go to Harbor Freight( or any decent parts house), spend $5.00 for a mechanics stethoscope. Use it to pinpoint the source(s) of your unwanted noise. About everything said so far is certainly a possibility but you need to narrow the playing field.

 

They were running off the side..before I put the adjustable guide plates on.

 

I've been chasing EXACTLY the same sound on my Impala SS for a while. When I built the 383 it wasn't as noisy as it is right now. I noticed that I didn't have the same oil flow to the lifters as it did stock. It takes about 1-2 minutes to get ANY oil up there. I used a magic marker, a pushrod length checking tool and my checking springs when I rebuilt it. I've built about 50 SBC's in my time and have never had this problem. About 2 months ago I went after the noise.

I had about 5000 miles on it including road trips, several, several 1/4 mile runs, and I'm sure my son did a bunch of stoplight grand prix racing with it. Since no amount of adjusting would help the noise and I knew it was valve train related I pulled the intake and heads. I put a dial indicator on the cam to check for lobe wear (none), I changed the lifters (stock LS7), I removed the valve springs (beehives) and replaced them with a set of 375 pounders and I took off the Comp Pro-Mag rockers and put on a set of Jesel shaft mounts that I had in the garage. I checked pushrod length, installed new pushrods and of course removed my guide plates. The cam does have about .580 lift but I've used similar cams before.

I primed the engine and reassembled everything with a smile on my face. I knew that the noise would be gone..........NOT. When I started the engine I had the typical lifter ain't got no pump up juice noise for a minute.......5 minutes........10 minutes and some crazy revving and no difference from when I started. Stll had minimal flow to the rockers and the same noise. It was dampened somewhat by the aluminum rockers but it was just as bad as before.

I've driven the car around some and it's no better. It still sounds just like yours. I'm going to pull the engine this week and find the problem. I was in a bit of a rush when I built this engine and let the machine shop put in the cam bearings. I did not check the indexing of the bearings. If the oiling holes are in the wrong place it could have wiped the bearings out. I didn't drill and tap the oil galley plugs on the front of the engine......I just used the stock setup. Maybe one of them is leaking. I'm at a loss, but, I will find out what's wrong this week. It's too simple to have this kind of problem. It's going to be something I haven't seen before.

If you find the source of your problem in the next few days, please let me know. Here's a video of a guy that's in the same boat as we are. I'm certain that's my problem also. Just click on the pic.

 

I haven't run mine with the valve cover off yet. I might try that tonight or over the weekend. The guy that built my bottom end is an old dirt track racer who built engines on the side to support his racing habit and to put 2 kids through college and since I've had the noise since before the new bottom end I don't think that it is cam related. I've been debating on putting the stock stamped rockers back on just to see if the noise goes away.

 

1st 90Cp.
It looks like from the picture that you might have the wrong rockers on there. They're very close to the outside edge of the valve tip! They should start a little to the outside and roll across the center and just a little to the inside of the valve at max lift. The track across the valve tip should be mostly centered. I'd take one rocker off and check to see if the bottom edge of the rocker is contacting the retainer....that's bad (and noisy)...It will bounce the retainer hard enough to release the keepers and the valve will fall down into the cylinder and hit the piston!

 

That would really suck. I edited my picture post. The pics of the rockers at the outer edge of the valves was before I put the adjustable plates on. I just finished doing that last night. I checked each rocker and none of the bodies had been making contact with the valve, I was kind of surprised. These are the rockers that I'm using

http://www.compperformancegroupstore...Category_Code=


I do have a mech stethoscope and I have narrowed it down to something under the VC. It's not injectors because when I listen to them with the scope it's a different sound.

This has been a 6 month run of torture since I do not want to drive it like this for fear of royally screwing something up inside the engine.

 

Check for an exhaust leak, these can really sound like rocker noise, ask Calderone, he chased rocker noise for a long time before he discovered it was a exhaust manifold leak....WW

 

I vote , this one

 

It might be that but how would I find it?

The headers are Hedman, I used Percys dead-soft gaskets (2nd use). I thought about picking up some copper header gaskets and changing them. When I took the headers off to pull the block I didn't see any evidence of a leak at the gasket.