Need ideas

[drb5721]

Installed my built head a few weeks back. It had been sitting for a while so i did not bleed lifters before puttong head on. Engine ran nice and wasnt noisy at all. For the past week ive noticed some rattle noise, light at idle and increases with engine speed. Well, i pulled the valve cover today and start poking away. None of the rocker arms compress at all on the lifter side.

This has me stumped as it is a high and light sound under the valve cover. The other thing i noticed it what looks like carbon buildup on a couple rockers and cam lobes. Ill post a picture as im not sure what i might be looking at.

This head is build to the golden sr head specs. Only thing not in it is solid lifters.

[drb5721]

http://i67.tinypic.com/1zqedtt.jpg
http://i64.tinypic.com/2rhl4bb.jpg
http://i63.tinypic.com/spw7f7.jpg
http://i67.tinypic.com/23iyyqx.jpg

[drb5721]

Oil change was done when the head was installed. Fresh rotella t6. Pcv valve rattles when shaken and closes when blowing through from hose side. Opens when blowing through valve cover side.

[drb5721]

Probably fat fingered the section selection. This might ve better in the engine tech section lol.

[di-devol]

What size are your cams? Not big enough to warrant solid lifters?

If you didn't bleed the lifters, bleed the lifters.

[drb5721]

Cams are hks 264s. Not big at all. I should have a nee valve cover gasket here tomorrow so time/weather permitting i guess its out with the lifters

[drb5721]

What might be causing the buildup on the rockers and cam?

[drb5721]

Hey guys,

So after a bad MAF journey, swapping in the stock cams, and driving for a bit, I am noticing it looks like even the stock cams are getting this carbon/oil buildup by the lobes and on rocker arms. Is this a sign of a bad exhaust valve seal/guide?

I am also getting some loud tapping noises again more-so from the front of the engine that only occurs above 2700 RPM and up during idle or in gear. Only hear it under part throttle. I have disconnected coil connectors with engine running with no difference in noise.

Oil level is full for what its worth.

[drb5721]

Any way a mod can move this to sr20 tech?

[drb5721]

http://tinypic.com/player.php?v=2lnbsqx%3E&s=9#.WU2zY64pBoM

[jedi03]

The cam cap next to that looks loose to me, but maybe it's getting hot and the oil squirter is just dribbling out oil? Crank with the valve cover off and see what it does

[drb5721]

Cam cap definitely wasnt loose. Engine hadnt been off longer before i pulled the valve cover off. I wanna figure out the rattle in that video so i know what my next move is/needs to be. If its bottom end there is no reason to care if its head related. Itll all need redone anyways

[drb5721]

I've cleaned these oiling tubes twice already and once again I find it clogged up. Did some cranking with the valve cover off and sure enough some holes were stopped up. Pulled the tubes again and spent about and hour cleaning them. Put them back on and turned it over again and in a matter of seconds a hole or two on each is back to clogged.

Have tried brake clean multiple times from both the banjo hole and each set of squirt holes. Before putting the tubes on, all holes are spraying with the brake clean running through.

Gonna do ANOTHER oil change. Is there anything else I could use to clean these things? Perhaps something to soak them in for a bit that might help loosen/dissolve whatever is clogging the holes?

[jedi03]

I used an awl to open the holes up a bit more on one of mine...seemed to help a little...

[drb5721]

Seems I have read people recommended NOT to do that. However, I haven't done it so cannot speak for the effects of such an action. I feel like i have read the s14 sr20s oiling tubes have holes that are just a TINY bit bigger which to me is essentially the same as what you have done.

[drb5721]

While at work today I am letting the tubes soak in an injector cleaner/brake clean cocktail to see if it will help break down whatever is causing my problem. I am also going to drain the oil and try to clean everything as best as I can this evening after dropping the lower oil pan.

[tb13]

How does the oil look when you are draining it?

[drb5721]

The oil is getting dark. However I have changed the oil every 2500 miles since owning it for a little over a year considering I do not know what the previous maintenance was like. I have roughly 1800 miles on this oil change so a good cleaning certainly won't hurt hence the reason I plan to drop the pan.

It is top end noise, not bearing related, unless its main bearings but it sounds nothing like mains. Pulling coil connectors or injectors does not change the noise when revving and it sounds like its coming from around cylinder 1 which is where one of the oiling holes was clogged up.

[tb13]

The oil is getting dark. However I have changed the oil every 2500 miles since owning it for a little over a year considering I do not know what the previous maintenance was like. I have roughly 1800 miles on this oil change so a good cleaning certainly won't hurt hence the reason I plan to drop the pan.

It is top end noise, not bearing related, unless its main bearings but it sounds nothing like mains. Pulling coil connectors or injectors does not change the noise when revving and it sounds like its coming from around cylinder 1 which is where one of the oiling holes was clogged up.

Judging by the amount of gunk on your rockers and cams along with dark oil after just 2500miles, I'd say you have either bad valve seals or an issue with your rings. If exhaust gas is finding a way into your crank case or head it'll gunk up the oil and cause build up like you are seeing. Do a compression test and a leak down test and report back.

[drb5721]

I will attempt a compression test. Not sure if my grandfather has a good gauge or not. Rings would strike me as an off chance seeing as all this started happening after swapping heads. NEVER had this issue in the other head and compression results were good then. Im wondering if its more-so the dribbling oil now flowing sufficiently enough and its just being "cooked" to the surfaces inside the head. Its only on the cams and rockers. If there were exhaust gases entering, wouldnt i see more of this on other thing such as the cam caps, head studs, etc?

[tb13]

I will attempt a compression test. Not sure if my grandfather has a good gauge or not. Rings would strike me as an off chance seeing as all this started happening after swapping heads. NEVER had this issue in the other head and compression results were good then. Im wondering if its more-so the dribbling oil now flowing sufficiently enough and its just being "cooked" to the surfaces inside the head. Its only on the cams and rockers. If there were exhaust gases entering, wouldnt i see more of this on other thing such as the cam caps, head studs, etc?

Its hard to tell for sure, If you don't suspect rings, get a hold of a leak down tester and give that a shot. That will tell you if you have a leak some where or if the issue is somehow related to oil delivery in the head.

[drb5721]

Drained the oil last night. Seen a VERY small amount of what looked like metallic flake so I proceeded to pull the lower oil pan and pickup and found some materials in the oil pick up that somewhat resembled bronze bearing material. Pulled the upper pan, see nothing on the ledges of it. Gonna pull the rod caps this evening and see what the damage is. If I find something, I will likely just pull the engine completely and do mains while I am in there.

[battery1882]

I see that the retainers have been changed so I assume you have aftermarket springs. What springs are you running? Best thing to do, if you still have your old oil, is to send it to blackstone for oil analysis. That will tell you what materials are high in number. cheapest insurance.

[drb5721]

BC Springs. Oil Analysis would come back skewed as I have run some cleaners through the engine and have only one drain pan. I did not feel any up and down play in the rods, at least not enough to think there is a bad one. But I've had a spun bearing before that I would have NEVER known about had I not been bored and pulled the rod caps.

[drb5721]

Engine is out on the stand. Pulled rod bearings. None spun inside the rods luckily but bearings are trashed. Crank is pretty scored on cyl 3 rod journal. Advance auto has a sr20de crank kit for the g20 that come with bearings and all. Might consider this route.

https://m.advanceautoparts.com/p/crankshaft-rebuilders-remanufactured-crankshaft-kit-30270/19950105-P?navigationPath=L1*14923%7CL2*15030%7CL3*16014

[tb13]

Engine is out on the stand. Pulled rod bearings. None spun inside the rods luckily but bearings are trashed. Crank is pretty scored on cyl 3 rod journal. Advance auto has a sr20de crank kit for the g20 that come with bearings and all. Might consider this route.

https://m.advanceautoparts.com/p/crankshaft-rebuilders-remanufactured-crankshaft-kit-30270/19950105-P?navigationPath=L1*14923%7CL2*15030%7CL3*16014

A buddy of mine bought one of these kits, had to have the crank turned and buy new bearings to get proper tolerances. If you get one, make sure you have it checked out!

[drb5721]

That is a bit concerning. Its certainly the cheaper option initially vs buying bearing and machining. But its more expensive if i have to do the same thing

[drb5721]

Upon further inspection i see a hairline crack in the piston skirt on cylinder 2. Atleast i feel like thats what it is. There is also a weird imperfection at the bottom of the bore right where the crack is.

[sked707]

Revive old thread! Curious on the outcome of this as I'm having similar symptoms on my ka single cam. I also swapped in a newer looking rebuilt head & started getting noise after the install. At first I thought it was lifters but now I'm thinking it might be rod bearings. I'm kinda at a loss right now. To the OP if you see this, so was it eventually the rod bearings causing the noise??

[drb5721]

If you have an issue with rod bearings, the noise will be present only on decel. Also, unplugging a coil/removing a spark plug boot would make the noise disappear as there is no ignition in said cylinder thus causing resistance to the rotation of the crank and rod. In my case, which is SR related, I had a few things going on. I had beat the shit out of that motor so the bearings were finally beginning to bronze from the abuse so I am thinking that some of that material was causing some blockage of the passages. I was also having the noise faintly at decel. It's hard to determine the noise and cause online but in my case, I had both a noise from the rod bearings, albeit faint due to the fact it was a material worn away versus a spun bearing, and noise from the cams from improper lubrication because of oil passage clogging. I simply picked up another SR long block with a new crank and bearings for $500 and slapped it in.