ENRKyle20

I finished building my LE2 383 a week or so ago and got in in my car. First startup was great. Ran like a champ and no odd noises.. I was gettin 70 lbs or so of oil pressure based on the stock dash display. I ran the engine for a while and changed the oil. while changing the oil I noticed the bell housing was gettin wet and driping oil.. ahhh so I got some oil gettin out there.. I will have to pull the trans and see if its a oil gally or the rear main. thats not a huge deal. I can handle that. I also found that my water pump is leaking a little. I knew it was going out (bearing was in bad shape), but I figured I would use it until it went out. so I ordered a new waterpump.. not a problem.

so I did some basic tuning.. adjusting for injectors and displacement, some stuff to delete the EGR and skipshift thing.. zeroing out the EGR timing adjustment table.. stuff like that, just to make it ok to start breaking it in. I did that and went for a ride. it was great. the clutch felt great. it drove good. I was happy. threw the next 3 days I drove the car a few times and put about 32 miles on it. I put the gas a ways down a few times.. maybe 3/4 throttle and she pulled great. I was kicking the a$$ end out all over town with almost no throttle.. so I was happy. I just had to fix the oil leak and the water pump.

Then when my buddy comes over for a ride in the car something went wrong. like they always do with friends. lol.. it was running good for 10 mins or so then when I came to a stop light I could hear a little faint ticking on the passenger side. it also stumbled a little (felt a litte like a misfire) at idle.. I did not give it more than 1/4 throttle all night. I parked it and shruged it off for that night and had a few beers.. lol..

the next day I took it for another ride and it was definatly ticking.. fairly quietly but I could hear it reverbing off houses when i drove by. It could have been in my head but it didnt feel as powerful. it was not kicking the a$$ end out with the same ammout of throttle as the other 30 miles before the clicking. I gave it a little more throttle and it pulled good but then when I let off it was clicking quite loud now and it took alot of throttle to get it to move.. felt like maybe 5 cylinders or less. it wouldnt idle without throttle.so I shut it off and pushed it home.. I let it cool down and went back to start it.. it turned over normal speed so nothing is tight in the motor wich is good. this time it started and idled on its own while still clicking loudly.. so tempature did change the situation a but, but the clicking was just as loud,

to me it sounds like a top end noise.. lifters..and it was definatly coming from the passanger side. so I pulled the pass side rocker cover and put a white rag over the rockers and started it.. and I got no oil at all on the rag.. I let it run for about 45 seconds still nothing on the rag.. this while time I had 70+lbs oil pressure. I could see the rockers moving and it looked like they were opening the valve qute a BIT but I have nothing to compare it to.. I wonder if the lifters are gettin oil?.. that would cause a very bad click from the lifters bottoming out, correct?.. could that cause power loss?.. the ammout I had? I kno the valves wouldnt open alot but that wouldnt matter at those low throttle angles..

I didnt drive the car today (dont want to with that clicking). but I would imagine it wouldnt have much power.

I pulled the other rocker cover and did the same test on the other side and I got no oil on the rag their either.. one pushrod had a little oil dribbling out but thats all.. with 70lbs of oil pressure why is oil not shooting out of those pushrods?.. could it be to tight of tolencered on a bearing???.. lifters not gettin oil?..

remember I do have an oil leak in the rear.. maybe its a oil gally plug?. but I dont think so since they are threaded on that side and i used thread sealer. I did not drill any holes in the gally plugs on the timing chain side..


so, any advise on what this could be?.. next step?

Thanks

Jazsun

Perhaps the 70lbs is an indication that something is plugged, thus creating more pressure around the sensor....But I always though the sensor was in the intake...which doesnt make sense...odd

Granite00

The lifters are fed from the cam bearings. I once had an engine, not an LT, but an engine that wore out a set of cam bearings. When the oil hit them, it would spit out both sides of the bearings and drop back to the pan instead of going into the lifters and up to the heads. It originally came in sqeaking from under the vavle covers.

You might need to pull the intake and crank the engine with the plugs out to create oil pressure and figure out where the oil is and is not getting.

Connexion2005

This was one reason priming is very important. When you take off the covers do you ever at any time see presence of oil on the valvetrain at all? It can take a minute or so from a cold start to get up there so don't worry if is not instant. Also what type of rocker nuts are you using? Poly locks or regular nuts?

ENRKyle20

the sensor is in a gally in the block wich is behind the intake manifold. its one if the first things that the oil will see, so a clog would perhaps riase pressure, but i thought the pump had a pressure bleed off for somehting like that.

I did measure the mains and rod bearings. they are a bit on the tight side, but not super tight.. and I should mention im using a M155HV high pressure/volume pump..but I did not measure anything on the cam bearings. I did pay close atention to oil hole alignment on the cam bearings when I installed them tho. I used a paper clip to be sure it the oil feel hole was over the little gally.

would just the started turning over create enuff pressure to see anything?.. with plugs out.. arg. Its kinda a pain to take the plugs out. would it work just as well to take the distributer dummy drive thing out and spin the oil pump drive shaft with a drill.. it would be the same as a standard SBC extension.. maybe turn the enine over with the starter a few times (with plugs in). then see if the lifters are filling, and where oil is going?..



I do see a little bit of oil res in the heads, and everything is a little wet, so im sure some is makign it up there. and I am using the poly locks that came with my comp rockers.. I am going to take some video of the noise and post in in a min.

ENRKyle20

ok. here is a quick video. this is a cold startup. about 70psi oil pressure. idling on its own. I reved a little bit after the video ended and it was very very sliglish. like its only a few cylinders.. I have the belt off and altenator moved so I could get the cover off. I am gettin some smoke from they header there, but I dont know if its from oil gettin on it or somehthing else. I dont see anything real obvious.

Here is the video:




ewww, I hate hearing this....


here is some video of what it sounded like under the hood a few days ago.

http://s16.photobucket.com/albums/b3...nt=Exhaust.flv


edit: I was just watching those rockers closly, and somehting does not seem right about those.. the valves open a few times then the lifters colapse it looks like.. its eratic.. they open and close fast a few times then stop for a while.. thats not correct is it>?

shoebox

Something is wrong. The rockers are not rocking all the time.

I'd pull the intake. If the lifters are being starved, they might end up seizing in the bores.

ENRKyle20

yea. I noticed that.. so the noise we are hearing is the lifter plunger bottoming out in the lifter when the cam trys to lift the valve, then the plunger is being pushed back up by the spring when its lettin the valve go and then it tries again on the next rotation and it bottoms out again and we hear it again. why would I only hear it on one bank?.. and not alot more times?.. maybe its only one or 2 lifters making the noise? the most starved ones?.


well, its a relief to know that the noise is coming from the top end. I dont understand why it was fine for the first 30 miles.. I did not presoak the lifters in oil.. so it had to have filled up with oil and worked for a while. that makes me think that maybe some thing is blocking oil flow up top, something that was not there before, that made it ways in.

do you think that pouring oil down the pushrods would do anything at all, even to see if I couldnt make it quiet for a min to be sure thats whats going on?.. maybe purge or blee it or something?..

96capricemgr

Yeah the rockers do not look right in their motion.

Lifters do NOT need to be soaked in oil.

Describe how you adjusted them.

ENRKyle20

do you mean desctibe how i set lifter preload?

I turned the pushrods with my fingers and i tightned the nut until i felt a little bit of resistance (made sure it was not colapsing the lifter) then turned another 1/2 a turn then tightned the polylock down..

these are LS7 lifters



actually, I forgot to mention how I made sure I was on the base circel.. well I just waited for the other valve to open then did it. and I just realised that that was not correct. I found the right way to do it.. to be SURE im on the base circel..

but could doing that wrong cause whats going on here?.. especially consideing it didnt make this sounds until now, all the poly locks are tight

96capricemgr

The "spin the pushrod" method almost always results in too much preload. How much cranking did you do on the polylock before you felt resistance?? If you went fully finger tight on the nut then that was already past zero lash.

ZELIMINATOR-28

Judging from the video sound (which is by no means accurate) that sounds alot like a bottom end knock! I would remove your current oil filter and cut it open to see how much metal, if any is in there.

marshall93z

Looks like your lifters aren't pumping up.

bowtiekid

You said you adjusted the rockers on base circle? but then right after that you said you waited for the valve to open before you tightened it? which one was it? and since the ls7 have deeper cups do you have the correct push rod legnth?

ACE1252

Good grief that's quite a bit of noise.....not good. I wouldn't run it anymore....I think you need to pull it, tear it down, start measuring tolerances, and find what is blocking oil to the top end.