update on ticking lifter problem

[jrc90240sx]

Ok a little history on the problem sense i dont want to find old links. i have a fully built KA24e engine, and have had nothing but problem with it sense it was built. at about 700 miles i started making some noses, and at about 900 was pretty much undrivable because of the noise (timing chain and some other noises)

1st - took it ot the machine shop and they thought the same thing as me. I took my engine apart to find the tensioner guid was bad and wouldnt move, so the tensioner couldnt remove the slack from the chain.

2nd - after that was fixed i still had a tick in my head, not knowing what to do next, i drove it very little while i thinking of options. took it back to the machine shop, they though the lefters might be bad, took it to a machinic they ruled out oil presure, and figured it was the lifters also. replaced all 12 lifters/rockers. still had the problem, drove the car a little more.

3rd - finaly with less then 1.2k miles on my engine I took it to a local nissan dealer to let them try and find the problem. they went through and did some testest. they found my car was not making the corect oil presure. having tested the oil pump, and not getting any oil to it, thought it might be the pickup, and replaced the o-ring for it, didnt fix it, tried a new oil pump still was getting low oil presure, found my oil presure wire was cut/broken so they fixed it (why i never new). now they feel that its this oil presure release valve in the head, that is bleeding off oil befor it gets up to the corect presure. if this is the case i am going to make the machine shop rebuild my engine again!! but i want to get some opinions on this frist from all of you, thanks.

Joe

[powerdrifter]

It sound like an oil passage is partially blocked or you have bad EXHAUST MANIFOLD GASKETS. Have you removed the oil pan, cleaned it out, and checked the oil strainer? Aftermarket and the original Tensioner guides that came with the car when new were made out of plastic which didn't last when you had sustained high-rpm's. So NISSAN redesigned (not avail. aftermarket) the tensioner guides to metal with a special plastic/rubber mix coating. NISSAN MOTORSPORTS also offers a timing chain tensioner and tensioner cylinder for performance duties. Also check the oil filter. Cut in in half to see what is floating around inside. try adding a med-big magnet on the side of the oil pan above the drain plug. Add a bottle of Marvel Mystery Oil to help with the oil circulation and/or use 5w-30 to see if it helps. There's only so many things that can go wrong with oil system. Try taking the car to a real performace shop like STILLEN or XS ENGINEERING. tuner shops that have experience with built motors. Do a process of elimination, replace everything one-by-one if all else fails.

[jrc90240sx]

well the engine dosent even have enough miles to have any kind of build up, and oil pan is clean. i have ran 10-30, 0-40, 20-50, and 5-30 weight oils, have used 4 difrent oil filters.

i replaced all the guids with nissan OEM parts. replaced lifters/rockers sense rebuild.

nissan has replaced oil, oil filter, oil pump, oil pickup O-ring, fixed my oil presure gauge.

talk to Machine shop today, they dont feel its the presure relase/control valve, and they didnt replace it on the rebuild.

called nissan today and the guy couldnt find the tech when i called and said they would call back and never did.

I have ran the engine without the valve cover and the head is getting oil presure (at lest it was), and sprayed all over for the 3-5 seconds it ran. only things i can think of is blocked oil pasage going to head - head gasket, silicon gasket got some place, or o-ring not sealing and loosing presure there. the rocker rods could be bad? (rods that hold the rockers/lifters). i have a JWT cam (Jim Wolf said it shouldnt have a tick, and stock springs and lifters should work), so i really dont know. unfortuantly i dont have the first run oil filter, did frist change at 500 miles and didnt really have any problems yet, so didnt think about saving it. i guess i just dont want to have to pull the engine and tear it down already after already spending so much. if i had more room to work on it (dont have a garage) i would try to do it my self, but i dont have the space. arg i hate my car!! will go over to nissan tomorrow and talk to them in person and see what they say.thanks for the info

Joe

[jrc90240sx]

also one more thing i just thougt of. my deck hight was short so the machine shop had to cut a little off my pistons to keep the CR at 9:1. could that short dech hight make any kind of noise or just make me loss a little HP??

[Sigtek]

Just a thought, how short was your deck height and was the head milled? Seems to me if it was a little much (thinkin' it must have been for them to go to the trouble of shaving the pistons and not just using a thicker head gasket and/or leavin' a little extra compression, up to 1/2 point or so, generally would only help HP without problems of pinging, ect., unless there's something unique to 240's 24e that wouldn't tolerate it-haven't had mine apart....yet, 'nuf other problems with it for now) , this might allow the timing chain to slap a little more due to less distance between the crank and the heads. Thus, the tensioner can't quite make up for the "extra length" in the chain. Not sure if this would apply or not, can only relate this to the bike with DOHC's and pushrod motors that would need custom, shorter length pushrods when the head (or heads) would be milled and/or the block decked so much the valve adjusters couldn't compensate. But, even if there is an "extra" sprocket in there (which is what I'm not to sure about....like I said, ain't had 'er apart yet!), something, somewhere, has to take up the slack that was created where the tensioner(s) can only do so much and in your case, it's just not enough?

Hopefully someone will let us know if my thinkin' is on-track, or not even in the ballpark!

[jrc90240sx]

Yeah the tentioner has plenty to take out the slack in the chain, so i dont think thats going to give me a problem. i am more worred about my cam timing being off from the diffrent deck hight and wondered if that could have something to do with my problem (most likely not something to do with my problem). i just want my car to work! thanks again for the input

Joe

[powerdrifter]

Not likely. the computer can compesate timing by +/- 5 deg. Just because the motor was rebuilt, doesn't mean the machine shop did a good job of cleaning the oil passages.

Most shops just hot-tank the whole motor to remove the carbon and oil deposits. To really clean out the passages they would have to use long oil passage brushes and compressed air. How reputable was the shop that rebuilt it. Did they do the short block as well?

About the tensioner, it's not likey that it would be the timing chain or you would hear a constant rattling. It can pop out however, so Nissan Motorsports offers a tensioner upgrade for use with higher oil pressure motors.

JDM is the true path to performance!

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