Frequent Valve Tapping, Smoke, Running rich?

[burba1269]

Hey guys, here's the deal. My '90 240sx hatchback will frequently get, what I believe is a sticking lifter. I can start the car and run it, for instance a quick trip to the 7-11, then go inside, come out, start it up, and it will tick like it has no oil in it, even if the oil is full. Sometimes it will tick really bad almost as if one of the exhaust valves is stuck because I can hear it in the exhaust , it almost sounds like a miss even though all 4 cylynders are running. Anybody have a similar experience, is this something I can fix without having to pull the head? The tap is annoying because it is very loud and it makes me look like one of those idiots running around with no oil.

On a side note, my car smokes under full throttle which i attribute to bad valve seals, and my chrome exhaust will completely blacken within 20-25 miles. What could be causing this blackening of my muffler tips? could it be related to the tapping? I've racked my brain on this and the only thing i can think of is to just take my head off and rebuild it, but if I'm going to do all that im going to rebuild the whole motor.

As always gentlemen your help is much appreciated. I hope i was detailed enough, if not let me know ,I will clarify. Thanks

Rick,

[H8tred]

If you're smoking at WOT, it's not the seals. Running rich could be any number of things. Including timing, or MAFS, or your knock sensor.