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Hello all! My name is dominic jansson and im having problems with my 1994 acura legend gs. Some history on the car: I had an engine swap 70k miles ago. It was a clean rebuild and ran great until about 15k miles ago. I did have some overheating issues (bad gasket) so sludge buildup is completely possible. I run full synthetic and change it religiously every 4k miles. I have NEVER had a timing belt jump or break. I was also in the valvetrain replacing my valve covers 30k miles ago. I adjusted the rocker arms and everything ran great afterwards.
So my car has started having a lifter tick about 2 months ago. At first it got so bad I couldn’t drive the car without the lifters tapping. I peered into the crank case while the car was running and could see there were pressure issues (you can tell by the color of the oil and the slow movement). I changed the oil that day and took it for a highway run. Since then the tapping has quieted to only a few select times. The times it taps are : Rarely on startup. (maybe 1/5 starts will have lifter tick which goes away as the car heats up). Otherwise as the car heats the tick stops. The only other time I get a tick is after driving for a long time. It’s usually around 60-80 miles. The speed im driving makes no difference in when the car starts ticking (40 mph , idling, or 80. if its a long trip chances are itll tick reguardless.) . (If it is ticking the noise and rate will increase with the acceleration until the car shifts to a higher gear.) Otherwise short distance trips are completely quiet… Anything short of 60 miles or so is completely quiet , no hesitation or tapping , the car has amazing acceleration and no lash or noise. I’m lost! Help!
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Lifter tick is usually caused by insufficient oil to them. I see that it improves when warm. Since oil thins as it warms, I’d check oil pressure both cold and warm. Most stock engines should show about 10lbs for every 1000RPM. I.E. 10psi at 1000RPM, 20psi at 2000RPM, etc. when warm. I’d be willing to bet you find pressure fairly low when cold, rising higher when hot (tested at same RPM), but still too low. If so, here’s what I’d do: first, pull a valve cover and check sludging at rockers. If badly sludged, GENTLY clean as much sludge off the top of the head as possible. Then drop the oil pan, clean it out and clean/replace the oil pickup tube. After everything is replaced (including a new oil filter), fill with good oil of the right weight, and run for about 500 miles. Change the oil & filter again. That should take care of the problem. If not run for another 500 miles and change oil/filter again.
Let us know how it goes. Good Luck.
Also, when you do the oil change, look for copper/brass material or swirls in it. Like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ien1V1qG1yc#t=11s
If you do, the bottom end bearings are seriously worn, and you’re looking at replacing the bottom end bearings, and probably rebuilding the engine.Might not be the same thing but it sounds like one that came to me. The engine was replaced and had the same symptoms after a year. Turned out to be chunks of silicone and junk in the oil pan. It would get stirred up after a short drive and partly block off the oil pickup. Then after sitting all night the chunks would settle back to the bottom of the pan.
A couple of things come to mind. The first is the ‘rebuild’. If it wasn’t don’t up to spec that can account for the lack of oil pressure which may be causing the ‘lifter tick’. You might want to check the oil pressure. If the bearings weren’t set right when the rebuild was done then this could account for low oil pressure. Honda engine bearings are color coated by thickness. You need to make sure that the correct bearings are used to have the proper thickness for good oil pressure. The second thing is the synthetic oil. More info on that in these videos.
Synthetic vs Regular Oil
Re: Synthetic vs Regular Oil
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