Ticking after cam & lifters fixed!!!

[Slo-Ryd]

Just a heads up.................I've recently gone through a front exhaust valve tick after changing my cam and lifters on a 90 Evo 1340. Cam is a new EV27 and the lifters were Ultima. I used the the stock push rods being a bolt in cam. Motor was quiet before the change and had stock B lifters. After the cam and lifter change it would tick as it warmed up. Cold it was quiet. I battled for nearly 2 weeks, tearing it down and rechecking everything, realigning the rocker boxes and lifter blocks, rocker end play, cam thrust end play, nose cone bushing, pushrods hitting the tubes etc... I even clearanced the lower rocker box and looked carefully at the webbing under the upper rocker box covers, having read that folks ran into clearance issues but that was typically with high lift cames which the EV27 really isn't. Bike did run great though besides the annoying tick.

Get this......I put the old (about 5K on them) lifters back in, fire it up and go for a ride and let it get to full temp.........quiet as a churchmouse.

For those that put in "bolt in" cams and are told to use adjustable pushrods, go an extra flat or two to quiet them down, use Jims or S&S lifters etc.... do yourself a favor and stick to the stock B lifters. I learned my lesson in time wasted, not so much in $$$ spent. I'm by no means knocking the big name suppliers when it comes to lifters, but after trolling through countless post on different sites about this common problem and hearing the advice that it's "the nature of the cam" and to just live with it and ride it, I have to disagree.

I was meticulous in my process, and still ended up with what I believe was just a bad brand new lifter out of the box that was collapsing as the oil warmed up and thinned out slightly. It just didn't sit well with me that a lifter tick was acceptable and wouldn't hurt anything.

Now all this is assuming you've changed over your stock gear onto the new cam, which I would highly recommend. Gear lash issues will mimic this same ticking problem.

Rant over

 

[BUBBIE]

This IS one reason I DO Go with SE slender taper adj-pushrods. I CAN usually adjust out a Tic.

There is a Lot of Room for the adjustment change to take out a tic and the adjustment CAN Differ from the other Quiet ones.

I do RE-Use my NON-noisy lifters Regardless of who says differently. On my 09 96" using SE255cams, I took all the Old lifters (re-used) out from the SUGGESTED setting of 2.5 to 3.2 and it Also is as Quiet as a church mouse. Using the 2.5 adjustment called for by the SE slender tapers, it Clicked Badly...

Just My Way

signed....BUBBIE

 

[R_W_B]

Sounds like the new lifters were bad as you say. Valve train noise is harmless ONLY if it's within tolerances of say what a solid lifter would adjust to. With hydraulics it's risky with any noise unless you can decipher the clearance to be within a value that won't mushroom the ends of your valves. If they are collasping, or even just not pumping up enough, you have a problem.

I guess with low mileage it's ok to use the old lifters, I'm not real educated in that window of exposure. I know the cams we put in our cars as kids, we were told if the cam was new, the lifters had to be new also or trouble down the road. But I can certainly envision a low mileage lifter not having any serious cupping etc on it and being within new tolerance.

Glad you got it running quiet again.

 

[01 rk]

It is ok to use the old lifters as long as they go in the same place they came from, if not the front exhaust can be a problem down the road.
I speak from experience [bad] on this one. Not saying it will, but can be.

 

[Hoople]

and hearing the advice that it's "the nature of the cam" and to just live with it and ride it, I have to disagree.

I admire your persistence in finding out what the root cause was. Too many people today just accept "good enough" and as a result learn absolutely nothing along the way. Nice work.

 

[Bodeen]

What Hoop said! Nice work.