[mgarblik]

Originally Posted by chiphead

Typically a bent pushrod look like a mangled soda straw. Really bent.

And I agree that if all those poly locks are all the same type and are tight in that last picture, something is wrong. The inner lock portion should be pretty consistent across all the poly locks. The Crower rockers have a little recessed area in the trunnion on one side for the poly lock.. Maybe a couple of the trunnions are flipped upside down?

different rocker arms can sometimes require different pushrods. It this was my motor, I would pull the intake and Valley Pan, and verify the condition of the lifters, cam, preload and geometry.

It would be a good idea to check those trunions and make sure some aren't upside down. That would account for the inconsistent set screw height, possibly some noise.

[Va68goat]

I understand having too many hands in the motor. Since, I'm very new to this, I certainly wouldn't want to do the adjusting myself. I have to wait until friends are available to help in between working on their car and their job. There is one common denominator though. The ticking noise was present when the car was first started with the Crane rockers as it is now after switching to the Crower rockers. It's the same sound coming from the same location. It "appears" to be coming from the #8 location but I now understand how noise can travel.

The pushrods were checked and 5 of them were bent. Bent may be too extreme of a word. I think it would be best described as "warped". All the good pushrods rolled off the piece of glass where the "warped" ones wobbled and did not roll off the glass.

[chiphead]

Has the Valley Pan been checked, to make sure the lifter tie bars aren't kissing the underside of the Valley Pan? After the windage tray, roller tie bar hitting the valley pan is the next common interference point.

if these were iron heads, I would suspect that the pushrods are dragging on the heads, due to the 1. 65 rockers. But the Kaufman heads have enough clearance, right?

(Just FYI Joe, often when you put 1. 65 rockers on iron heads, you get interference between the push rod and the head casting. It can result in slightly bent pushrods. I would imagine that aftermarket heads will clear)

[gtofreek]

Originally Posted by chiphead

Has the Valley Pan been checked, to make sure the lifter tie bars aren't kissing the underside of the Valley Pan? After the windage tray, roller tie bar hitting the valley pan is the next common interference point.

if these were iron heads, I would suspect that the pushrods are dragging on the heads, due to the 1. 65 rockers. But the Kaufman heads have enough clearance, right?

(Just FYI Joe, often when you put 1. 65 rockers on iron heads, you get interference between the push rod and the head casting. It can result in slightly bent pushrods. I would imagine that aftermarket heads will clear)

Heads had plenty of room for 1.65 rockers. Also the valley pan appeared to have plenty of clearance.

[Va68goat]

Hey TedRamAirII,

The flexplate came off of the 400 block I had when I bought the car. It's the only part that isn't new. When I had Paul build this motor, I sent him the old flexplate and he balanced it. Now that I have a new balanced flexplate, I'm hoping that is the problem. I did pull the plugs off one at a time and the knocking didn't stop. It's certainly not been a lack of effort of trying to get this motor right. I'm very new to cars but my friends are pretty good. We have checked everything that we can think of. It sounds like some sort of clearance issue...like hard metal hitting softer metal. It's hard to explain. Before we discovered the windage tray witness marks we pulled the converter back and it still made noise. I have no clue what else to do but try to replace the old flexplate. I think replacing the flexplate is a hail mary before I have to send the motor back to Paul. This motor has less than 200 miles on it!

[Grand73Am]

I haven't read the whole thread, but I suppose you all looked for oil pan interference with the rotating assembly.

I have a friend with a 383 stroker Chevy, which had a knocking sound. Turned out it was hitting somewhere on the pan. It wouldn't do it by just rotating the crank slowly. The engine had to be running for it to happen. He replaced the pan which fixed it.

[TedRamAirII]

Originally Posted by Va68goat

Hey TedRamAirII,

The flexplate came off of the 400 block I had when I bought the car. It's the only part that isn't new. When I had Paul build this motor, I sent him the old flexplate and he balanced it. Now that I have a new balanced flexplate, I'm hoping that is the problem. I did pull the plugs off one at a time and the knocking didn't stop. It's certainly not been a lack of effort of trying to get this motor right. I'm very new to cars but my friends are pretty good. We have checked everything that we can think of. It sounds like some sort of clearance issue...like hard metal hitting softer metal. It's hard to explain. Before we discovered the windage tray witness marks we pulled the converter back and it still made noise. I have no clue what else to do but try to replace the old flexplate. I think replacing the flexplate is a hail mary before I have to send the motor back to Paul. This motor has less than 200 miles on it!

I don't know Paul personally, but I'm sure he checked it over before putting in the effort to balance it. Have you taken the converter bolts out and just run the engine by itself? If you did, you could make take a small mirror or bore scope and get a eyeball on the bolts to the crankshaft flange. So the engine was shipped to you with the flexplate torqued, ready to go? Did anyone check it while the engine was out? Keep the faith, its going to be something simple!

[Va68goat]

jonmachota78,
We did dissect the oil filter and checked all the pleats. There was nothing in there that would be a reason for concern. It was inspected by HWYSTR455 (Mike) and he said it was fine.

Sirrotica,
I think what may be a good idea is for us to pull the converter back again and listen to it. If the flexplate was making noise when we did this test, we may not have heard it because we did have the windage tray making noise. grivera installed the flexplate and he doesn't recall using a shim. When I get home, I will repost all the video's of the noise. It's really odd because you can hear it while you're sitting in the car and it almost sounds like its coming from under the dash. I guess that's the way the sound is traveling but it is very noticeable.

JSPONT,
During this process, I did buy a bore scope. I will give that a try. I have changed the oil in this car 3 times already and each was inspected. There was nothing of concern that was brought to my attention guys that actually know what they're doing

[TedRamAirII]

I dont know if a flex plate is going to fix that. There isnt much to a flex plate that can make a noise, unless its cracked/loose at the crank hub. Still sounds like something in the bottom end, but hard to figure if its at Crankshaft speed. Perhaps a Slow Motion Video? I have not read old replies, but has each cylinder been tested if the noise goes away when no spark is at the spark plug? that would isolate if it was at one cylinder. I was hoping this was fixed and I missed the end results.