Thread: Lets talk Lifter Tick (w/vid)

This past winter my car has been experiencing a tick at cold startup. It's very obvious when the weather was under 15*. The tick will be there anywhere between 2min to 5min. The colder the weather the longer that tick. I finally took my car into the shop this past weeekend to get it looked at. They did not hear the tick at startup becauase the weather isnt cold enough anymore. I did send them a video and the tech there said it was either lifter tick or piston slap, but he was leaning towards lifter tick. This only happens when the car sits overnight or for a long period of time in cold (20 degrees or below) weather. It was 20 something degrees this morning and i could barey hear it. When the weather was really cold last month and in the negatives overnight, i could hear the tick from 50ft. away and it was about 6 times as loud as it is in the video. The noise sounds like its coming from the drivers side bottom of the engine.

My warranty ends in August of this year, and im afraid that no one else is going to hear the noise because the weather is going to be getting warmer now the tick wont be there, but it will probably come back next winter after my warranty ends. And if this is something that is going to cause stress on my engine I dont want other stuff to break while my warranty ends.

The shop wants me to check to see if they can accept my warranty then look at my car again next weekend.

This noise started happening about 500-1000k miles after i switched to synthetic oil (not sure if that is coincidence or not).

My understanding is if the tick only occurs during cold startup for a few minutes than there is something clogged and the oil being thicker when its cold, takes some time to get to the lifter. Here are the 2 vids. Any input or thoughts would be good. I heard that putting lucas oil stabilizer or Auto-RX can cure cold startup tick sometimes, but i would rather stay away from putting miracle oil in my car.

MOV02120.flv video by Midwestspecial - Photobucket

GP003.flv video by Midwestspecial - Photobucket

It is lifters....... Many LS1's experience this same issue. It has to do with the oil bleed off of the lifter. it wont harm your motor.. it just makes the sound until it warms up.

Lucas in any motor is a good idea.... but I would try to park the car inside.. or out of the cold.

what weight oil do you use now?

5w-30

use thicker oil. you should run 10w30 at least. i run 10w40 in mine.

It says 5w-30 on the oil cap?

even so, i think the l67 likes thicker oil. after running 5w30 i switched back to 10w30 because my oil pressures were getting low at idle. i then switched to 10w40 when my oil pressures became low with the 10w30.

if i was n/a i would definately run 5w30, but for the amount of heat we are producing you need something with more consistancy.