Ok so I dropped in the 408, and as you guys know I had electrical problems for over a month, thats done now. Here is the problem. LOUD vlave train now. On start up from a cold motor it is making a really bad sound and it does not sound good at all. After about 3 seconds and a little gas it goes away. But then even when the engine is warm Im getting a noisy valve train. Im running nothing crazy Patriot stage 2 LS6 heads with dual springs, stock lifters and stock length push rods, stock rockers.

Here is what Im thinking, bad oil pick up tube O-ring??? Or dead lifter? The O-ring was the only gasket that I had to re-use on the entire motor and Im worried about it. I get 38-40psi oil press. at idle and a slow increase of 55-60 with a stab at the pedal.

Im going to take the heads back off this weekend and also drop the front dif. and oil pan. Where would you guys start.

BTW if this thing was running I would sell it so fast, Im sick of it!

 

Definately change the oil pump o-ring! I neglected to change mine as well and experienced the same problems (execpt my oil pressure was even lower, like 20 lbs), I replaced the oil pump o-ring and that fixed it.

 

40psi at idle shouldn't cause ticking. What kind of rockers do you have? Have you checked them?

 

I would check the pushrod length too. I had to drop mine from 7.40" to 7.30" even though I don't have milled heads or anything. The base circle on my new cam is smaller than stock, and my block was only decked .01". This screams "longer pushrods" to me, but I ended up having to go shorter to get the right preload on the lifters.

 

Mine did the exact same thing when the o-ring was bad. I changed it and didnt have a problem after that. It would sound like the tick was coming from the underneath the valve covers. It would come and go intermentently (sp). Make sure you get the truck o-ring and not the ls6 pump o-ring.

 

if your gettng 40psi at idle and 60 at a stab its not in the o ring in the pickuptube. what rockers are you using? and those dual springs will make a louder noise than stockers

 

My truck is stock and makes that noise. I think it might be a dead lifter or bent push rod. Check those on your truck since you have great oil pressure.

 

Well I want to say first, thanks so much for the help guys. One thing to note about this motor. This motor is Tony's (2bseen) old motor, which was a long block, that I bought from him when he put in the 427. I know that Tony and Scott would not send me a crap motor, so Im not about to question that. What I did do was take the heads and the oil pan off of the motor before I installed it into my truck. I wanted to check everything out before I installed. I cleaned the heads up and the tops of the pistons. I then installed new ARP head bolts and reinstalled the valve train. Everything was torqued to the specs in the book except for the head bolts. This called for a one time torque, instead of that torque to yeld crap, or atleast thats what ARP box said.

So when I first fired the motor up it would only run for about 15 seconds due to the codes I was getting with the TB and it would starve it self of fuel and sound really bad as it tried to idle at 300rpm. I finally drove it (baby steps) and when I went to start it back up thats when the really bad start up noise came about.

I will just pull those damn heads. I know that the bottom is solid, its all forged and proven, but me reinstalling the top end may have caused something to go wrong.

Im running stock LQ9 rockers and comp push rods.

 

can you get a vid of the start up? before you tear it down

 

It most certainly without a doubt could be. My 418 had oil pressure symptoms EXACTLY like that, it would creep at WOT not jump and low idle pressure. What happened was the bolt that holds the pickup tube into the oil pump had backed out and the tube would come in and out of the oil pump.

Blow03, if you are going to pull the heads and the front diff, pull the motor instead it is MUCH easier and you can work on it on the engine stand instead of hunched over in the engine bay. Thats just me though. The loud valvetrain was also a symptom of mine, which what was happening was the "gap" was sucking air into the oil foaming it causing the lifters not to be able to prime or hold oil so I would get alot of valvetrain noise. IMO its the oil pump o-ring due to the fact your symptoms(all of them) are exactly like mine were and it was the damn pickup tube/o-ring stuff.

Good Luck.