ca18det hydraulic lifters issue!

[justflow]

Hi guys/girls.

I have a 1992 200sx (s13/180sx) with a ca18det, basically standard.

Recently after a full rebuild on the engine my hydraulic lifters keep ticking in idle/load all throughout the rev range.. they've kept ticking since rebuild and i've tried all different oils now... 15/40, 20/50, 10/30 etcetc but the sound has never gone away. I'm now scared damage to the engine will be caused and I really need to fix this issue ASAP. The ticking comes on and off.

For example, I could start the car now and no ticking, as soon as I rev the car and go up the road and boost a little the ticking starts LOUDLY. Sometimes after parking for an hour or so and turning the car back on it's fine and you can't hear a tick at all.. after boosting/revving the engine over 4,000 or so RPM the ticking comes back again.. sounds like it's a few of lifters (ie. you can hear 1 ticking, then a little later you can hear 2-3? the volume goes up)

A few querys I have;

* I need to remove to valve cover and cams to get to the lifters, is this a DIY job that is particularly straight forward and do I need to remove the cambelt too?? Also, would this require any special tools to get at the lifters etc and would I need to remove the sparkplugs also??

* Could it be possible that I still need to 'bleed' the lifters? (the car has travelled 2000-3000km since rebuild like this...) I read somewhere about physically seeing if there was any play in the lifters under the cover, and 1-4mm could mean there's still air trapped and to run the car with no load @ 1,000 rpm for 20mins? But after the car having traveled quite far already wouldn't this have 'bleed' the lifters and could this theory end up wasting my time?

Hmm. I've searched most nissan sites/forums out there and loads of google pages now and i'm stuck guys. This is urgent for me.. I appreciate any help..