Jmsomm

Dual springs, still on stock rockers, car wasn’t fully wanted up yet, oil temp was about 170. Sound normal?

The Former

While no one can say if the rockers have been installed correctly, I can attest to my car sounding like a sewing machine now. I have the Hot Tamale Cam. When I picked it up the installer (Brandon at Geared Up in illannoy, Great Shop) said, "Yeah, it has the always there valvetrain noises endemic to an LS." I heartily agree. They make noise! But, they run really well.

My advice is to drive the car. Put some miles on it and get used to your newly modified Corvette. In essence, there is nothing to worry about IMO. Mine sounds just like it.

Jmsomm

alright thanks man. Just concerned about it. I know there is countless forums about this same thing. Car runs great though.

Mc556

It’s so hard to tell from a video clip, but it takes no time at all to pull valve covers and check the rockers.
It’s really easy to have one lose after a reinstall if you didn’t turn over the motor and recheck each one.
Does it still sound that loud after the car is warmed up and did you change the lifters ?


BTW I have that cam in my car and it’s not that loud . Then again it’s a video clip. Personally I’d pull the valve covers and check the rockers
15 min per side to pull and check

Jmsomm

brand new ls7 lifters. It actually quiets down when the oil temp gets up there. Did some hard driving and it was much quieter when the oil temp was about 230. Seems kind of weird to me.

Mc556

I’ll have to listen to mine at cold start tomorrow and see what kind of noise I get. I don’t have any cats and with the long tubes it’s not the quietest On cold start.

Jmsomm

alright. I’ve noticed my car is dead silent in terms of valvetrain noise when it’s cold.(I also have long tubes no cats fully straight piped) gets noisier in the process of warming up, and quiets down when hot.

Vetteman Jack

Moved to C5 Tech.

leadfoot4

That sounds pretty loud, overall, to me. However, maybe it's a combination of loud rockers and loud fuel injectors? I installed the Straub Technology trunnion kit in my rockers, although I have the stock cam. My rockers "click" just a little, at idle, but as soon as I bring the RPM up another 50-75 RPM, the oil pressure rises, and the thing is as quiet as a mouse....

Jmsomm

it quiets down, but not until around 1500 rpm. Oil pressure is good. Guess I’ll be checking the rockers. They are still the stock needle bearings so I could see that being an issue.

redzg

What oil are you using, type, brand, and viscosity?

Jmsomm

pennzoil high mileage synthetic blend 5w-30.

MSG C5

The ticking sound may be a bad lifter.

Jmsomm

I sure hope not, they are all brand new.

MSG C5

Attached is a video from the performance shop identifying a bad lifter I had prior to a supercharger install. It may be a little different sounding ticking than yours. As a result, they ordered a new cam and new lifters as well as some other related hardware to go along with the SC install now scheduled for the first week in June. Hope this loads.

Kingtal0n

This sounds normal. Most of the ticking sounds like the fuel system.
You can generally tell its not a lifter or in the valvetrain because the frequency is once per RPM. The engine probably idles 600rpm~ which is 300 specific valve events per minute or 5 to 6 times per second at that rpm.


Listen to the frequency of the tick in this example, one two three four five per second, its in the valvetrain tick, about half the speed of the ticking in the first vid by the op

Kingtal0n

As an aside on the behavior of ticking noises


Oil viscosity has an impact on lifter ticking, in my experiment I change from to a higher viscosity oil and dramatically changed the tick

Supposedly this tick is a lifter tick. My experiment uses ~240,000 miles factory lifters with that ticking noise still. To this day I have put over 50k miles on them ticking like that without any issue regularly smack limiter 7,200rpm 600rwhp with them ticking away at idle as always. Its one of those things, 'if it aint broke' I am not sure when I will change them yet, but Today finally gave in and ordered lifters for it. I'm curious to see if the noise really is a lifter(s) or if I am about to do surgery all new parts and have the same tick and its something else. I'm pretty thorough in my research when it comes to pretty much anything but lifters, ticking, LS style tick noises in general, there are too many things on an engine that go tick to say its any one thing definitely all the time. The weirdest thing of all about my tick is that engine load + disabled injectors changes the ticking magnitude. Thats pretty hard for me to understand a lifter changing its noise due to cylinder load. But if it was a bent rod or something it wouldn't be at half the engine rpm. mysterious

Jmsomm

got the car warmed up today, this is what it sounds like. Seems much quieter. I changed the oil just because I thought I’d try the German Castrol. The loudest noises come through the shifter. I don’t know if it’s because I don’t have a shift boot on but I hear a clacking that is loudest at about 1500 rpm’s. But can be heard at idle as well. Goes away after that.

second video is from the shifter

MSG C5

Thanks. So do you think it was correctly diagnosed as a bad lifter? What other valve train tick would make that sound?

Kingtal0n

"tick" sounds off the top of my head that I've either seen or imagined to be possible
1. loose plug or coil - spark tick jumping arc spark to surface distinct tick noise
2. exhaust leaking - often misdiagnosed as engine ticking
3. accessory tick / belt tick - something on the front of the engine ticking related to the belt system
4. bolt tick - a loose bolt sticking out causing a tick noise rubbing backed out against something like a converter/flywheel situation
5. cracked flex plate tick - very convincing bad engine lifter sounding type of noise
6. transmission tick - they can tick believe me some can also knock quite convincingly like a rod bearing
7. crankshaft thrust tick - usually more of a dull thud type of noise but in neutral load situations known to 'tick' or clud/thunk lightly
8. Injector tick - they tick and sometimes one is louder than the rest or they obscure other tick noises or combine with them
9. spark plug tick - loose plugs known cause infamous ticking. Sometimes they are actually damaged or melted inside from poor tuning/maintenance and tick.
10. harmonic balancer tick - don't ask me how but they can fail and tick apparently
11. PCV valve tick - the little spring loaded pintle can tick when carbon builds up


inside the engine
A. rocker arm tick - excess lash or wear or alignment or loose hide and seek needle bearings
B. pushrod tick - bent or wrong length or misadjusted
C. lifter tick - collapsed or clogged or wrong adjustment
D. valve tick - bent valve or bad guide
E. Spring tick - broken or damaged valve spring
F. cam tick - bad cam bearing or wrong clearance
G. timing set tick - timing chain slapping guides block or cover or just generally eating through something
H. Oil pump tick - cavitation due to damaged O-ring letting in air can make noise or the pump itself inside gear can be noisy
I. Crankshaft tick - for variety of reasons rod/crank could tick, ex. bent rod causes counterweight to slap piston.
J. piston tick - broken piston, piston slap, carbon buildup, seized/stuck rings, wristpin wear, etc... all tick noises
K. Add your favorite

I did this off the top of my head I'm sure there are more. I was curious so I asked copilot if anything I missed and that was interesting I think I have it pretty covered



Pretty much anything can tick. You can put a list like this up on the wall and start crossing things off. It is, in my opinion, one of the potentially most difficult noises to diagnose on any engine due to the sheer number of things that can tick that are supposed to tick but also display variability in ticking over time. And there is also the wide range of exhaust system noise people experience, with a very loud engine is not going to hear or be concerned with or have the same opinion about a specific ticking noise because to them it might be impossible to hear or barely audible or sound completely normal. Like my tick with an open cutout pretty much sounds like a normal engine its lost in the noise and since I've been just driving it non stop for years like that I just got used to it. Even though it could be a worn out part, the engine runs normal and puts down dynojet rwhp that it should so I left it alone all this time, worried more about some new unknown lifters than the tick itself. Anytime you change a part especially 16 parts at once there is a risk associated with every.single.part that goes in, I Weight that risk heavily from experience.