screamin94Z

I implore you Rennlisters, can anyone help? I have a tick in my valvetrain that I suspect to be a bent valve and need a replacement to make it to RadWood Boston in just over two weeks! Not enough time to get the head worked and back on.

If you have an 8V NA cylinder head that is ready to go please get in touch. I am in upstate NY.

V2Rocket

paging @Chris White and @Van ….a NY guy needs a fresh 8-valve head...got one handy?

sweetskillsrk

Sorry man, if I had a spare I'd send her up to you. Just saw this on CL, not terribly far away from you, maybe a decent option if no one else close has one? Good luck buddy.

Chris White

I have some used ones. Should be rebuilt before using!
Many 16v if you want one!! and a freshly rebuilt 2.7 head.

Van

I have a few used heads kicking around. All are "status unknown".
What you should do first is a leakdown test and then a compression to verify you have a bent valve. Usually valves only bend one way... broken timing belt. If you just have a ticking noise, it might only be a lifter.

Do those tests, then send me a PM with the results.

Chris White

as usual Van is right, 'sticky' lifters is very common. Bent valves are not usually just a noise, they usually bend in pairs at least and result in a very badly running engine if at all.

BTW - has this engine been sitting for a while? It can take a heat cycle or two to get the lifters back in to shape.

screamin94Z

That's where I'm very confused! I suspected lifters, so I moved the ones from cylinder 1 over (which had no previous noise) to the offending cylinder 4 and the noise did not change.

The engine runs good and feels fine despite the incessant ticking. compression test revealed cylinders 1-3 at 155psi and cylinder 4 at 135psi. I would expect a bent valve would be worse than that, and like you mention, on 1 and 4? No broken timing belts but I did have it jump a tooth once after tensioning too loose.

I'm too nervous to run the engine for long periods of time, I plan on measuring the height of the valve stems to compare to the other cylinders. Any other advice is more than welcome!

jhowell371

FWIW many years ago I about went nuts trying to find a lifter noise in my Crane cam equipped 396 Chevrolet. Much to my chagrin it turned out I had blown header gasket which made a very metallic ticking sound. It had my gear head buddies thinking a bad lifter too. YMMV

screamin94Z

Good thought, I was hoping for an exhaust leak because that's what it sounds like in the car, but replaced all of the exhaust gaskets and found no evidence of leaks. Had the car running on a lift last week and everything was tight.

T&T Racing

The other source of ticking could come from the clutch/pressure plate assembly.

Use a screw driver with your ear or better a engine stethoscope to determine the source of the ticking noise.
Check each cylinder, balance shaft, etc