Bad tap/tick in valvetrain...lifter??

[s14daver]

Im a bigtime lurker on the forums here ever since i bought my s14 and i just recently picked up a 92 se-r sentra. The car used to be my friends who has sunk a nice amt of change into it all and never got it running right, that said i picked up it dirt cheap. The car runs but it makes a horrible tapping or ticking noise that goes up and down the the revs...Im thinking its a bad hydraulic lifter...? If this is the case is there an easy way to find which lifter is bad? I took off the 4 i could get to with where the cams were today and checked them and they seemed to all be nice and firm...Any help would be greatly appreciated, i searched for a good 15 mins and didnt find exactly what i needed to hear so i hope this doesnt annoy anyone.

-If it matters this is what is done to the car as far as the motor is concerned. rebuilt and bored .030 over, p&p head, milled block for higher compression(not too much), JWT S1 cams, JWT cam gears, I/H/E. The car runs great but it def. needs the timing and cam gears tuned. Also a bad lifter is prolly hindering its perforamce as the valve prolly doesnt open or close properly. If i can get the valvetrain straightened out itll be off for tuning and i should have a screamin sentra as my daily

Thanks in advance, sorry for the super long post...

[nametakennow]

Sounds like a bad lifter to me as well.

I've never heard of an S1 cam. S3, 4, and 5, but not S1.

[s14daver]

well he said its the lowest one that doesnt need any springs or anything so i figured it was like s1 or something...guess ill try and figure out that mystery too...any advice on fixing it or checking for which is bad would be amazingly appreciated, it completely stopped functioning today and died on me on the highway lol so now its just chillin at my shop until i can work on it. Thanks

[RED_DET]

It is very possible that the lifters need bleeding. Normally when the lifters are removed and then replaced, they should be blead. Most of the time driving at certain rpms will do the trick. ARe you sure its not timing chain slapping around. Hopefully it's not rod knock.

[s14daver]

Def. was not a rod knock. It was too light and tingy to me to me a rod knock thats why i kept driving it hoping the lifters would finally adjust themselves properly which never happened. I think the lifters might be too tightly pumped up or locked up now holding the valves open thus making it seeem like it has no compression, is this a possible situation on this motor? I cant tear into yet till we get this vette out of the shop so ive just been thinking of some possible causes, thanks for all the help keep it coming if u got it...

[s14daver]

Well........i got it in the shop and popped the valve cover finally and every damn rocker arm was broke in half...so i fished out all the pieces and the lil feet that go on the springs and ordered some rockers and i have rocker arem stoppers to put on as well...hopefully i can find the bad lifter if it had one and all will work out better this time around with rocker arm stoppers, any thoughts?

[nametakennow]

Sounds like you're on the right track.

[s14daver]

Im just afraid its gona happen again but im hoping the stoppers are my savior lol. Ijust bought all new rockers AND lifters...this sr better scream i didnt plan on putting that much money into it just to run(didnt plan on having to buy 8 of everything sigh)

[RED_DET]

How high you revving that damn thing?

[s14daver]

Thats just it im not revving the balls off of it or anything...I take it to the factory redline when i beat on it which is like what, 7600? Im hoping with the rocker arm stoppers all will hold up...

[nametakennow]

7600 is enough to make rocker arms do strange things.

I didn't think any SRs had stock redlines above 7k except maybe the VE.

[RED_DET]

My question is, have you figured out what type of cams they are exactly. You mentioned something about s1's, but JWT never made those. I wonder if they are not C1's.