Engine Problems

[SFC AL]

hey guys.. hows it going... been a while huh? been VERY VERY busy with work. Plus some personal issues... but I digress... my camaro is sick and I need your help.

It started ticking pretty bad and I changed the oil. Ticking still there... did some troubleshooting and determined that one of the lifters was bad...ripped the intake and valve covers off and changed ALL the lifters. Looked at the lifters and of the rollers is marred so I am not thinking there is an issue with the cam... put it ALL back together.. and TICK TICK TICK.... seems to be coming from the #3 cylinder but you know how that goes...

it doesn't do it ALL the time... only from about idle thru 1200 RPM and then it doesn't go ALL the way away but it definately isn't ticking as hard as it is when I first give it gas... I put some "gunk" into the oil to clean out the inside of the engine... *sigh* don't know if it fixed it because I have to leave town for a wedding today and the guy working on the engine is as lost about this as I am... he was 99% sure a lifter was bad....

ANY IDEAS?

thanks
AL

[Jeff_in_Atl]

What is your oil pressure? You might want to put a real gage on it.

[wolfdogs]

how many miles on the motor? if you changed lifters, i would have done valve springs too at the same time...

[SFC AL]

the engine has 95K, put a mechanical oil pressure gage on it and oil pressure is good.. the reason I didn't do the springs is because we were 99% sure that it was lifters... that 1% is kicking my butt now

whats it sound like when you have a bad spring? and what is the best way to test for a bad spring?

AL

[fastTa]

Have you re-tightened the rocker arms after the new lifter install? That would be a more likely possibility than a new lifter failure, although not impossible.