My wife bought one of the last Z28s and loves it. the problem is that the engine has a ticking. If I didnt know better I would say the lifters are rattleing. After repeated trips and assurances that everything was obkb, GM gave us a 100k mi warranty. Still I dont like the noise. It is the aluminum block and is literly bone stock. (she wont hardly let me drive it let alone work on it)
Any ideas as to the cause or cure?

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Ls1's are notorious for warped pushrods. You can upgrade them or live with the tick like everyone else. I had a 98 z-28 and a 99 SS and they both did the same thing.
Mike

Have you heard anything about carbon buildup on the head. I cant for the life of me think how this would cause an audible tick but thats the story chevy told. Thans for the reply.

Carbon build up on the head? if this is what they told you I would be asking for some warranty work. Carbon build up on the head would meen the ticking is not ticking but detonation. Detonation will kill the engine. The carbon starts to glow and as the piston is coming up in the cylinder the glowing carbon starts to ignight the compressing air/fuel charge early. The rattleing noise this makes is the piston knocking on the cylinder wall. Detonaion will peel the piston apart from the top ring land, tulip valves due the heat, eat away at the piston around the top edges and beat the top rod bearing out. An engine suffing detonation is a serios matter and it should be looked into. I would ask for a detailed explanation in writing about this carbon build up. If the car is drivin normally or how it is intended and maintained and did not have this problem the 100,000 mile warranty is no big deal it should last twice that. I would not settle for a lame excuse and an attempt to brush you off such as the one they gave you. Later on when something does happen they are going to say "well you should have done this or it's a maintance problem or you voided the warranty by...... or any other exucuse to have you pay for the repairs. Some dealers are good people others are just plain crooks. Use the lemon laws if have too.

Joe

Dave,
The aluminum block engines (not just GM's) tend to amplify a lot of normal noises. The LS1 engines have some pretty short pistons and I think they make a bit of noise too. Also, hydraulic roller lifters will make a slight clicking noise. It took a while for me to get used to them on my Blazer, but I never had a problem.
You may want to find someone else near you with a similar engine and compare them, I bet they are all a bit noisier than we are used to. I would not worry about it too much.

You can read up on the carbon buildup problems on the Corvette forum. Common practice by the dealer is to soak the cylinders with a special chemical overnight and blow it all out the next day. I think there might be a TSB on the issue but don't quote me on that. I do know this has been a problem for many late model Vette owners.

-Mark.

don't forget,an exhaust leak can sound quite a bit like a noisy lifter too
as always,good luck!
Eric

I agree with BillK. Not a V8 but I have an '02 Impala 3.4. There's always been a ticking noise that can be heard outside but not inside the car. I took it back to the dealer and they said it was the hydraulic roller lifters and the noise was normal. I didn't want to believe them at first but a friend has a '02 Grand Prix with the same noise and she was told the same thing by the Pontiac dealer. 30K miles later, all is okay and the ticking is still there.

This may have nothing to do with this but I thought I would throw it out for comments anyway.

A good friend bought an EFI'ed, 300 straight six Ford work truck and from the day he bought it bitched about the ticking????

I swear I could never hear it!!!

Anyway, he said the Dealer said it was fuel hydro-shock caused by the EFI controlled gasoline hitting the end of the fuel rail and the noise caused by this being amplified to where it sounded like a tick!!

BTW, I have a problem with carbon build-up on pistons b/c to me the massive combustion chaos that takes place SHOULD keep everything clean or we would have what is it, 60,000,000 of the old engines doing the same thing!! Plus, both the gas AND the oil have a whole lot less ash creating stuff in them than way back when!!

Bent P/R's , have a problem with that too b/c I know GM is cheap, but not that quality unconscious, imho...

Rocking pistons due to short skirts, again, I can see narrow shirts, but not all that short of skirts, again due to longevity reasons.

Now the uplifted edges of the tulip shaped valves, I abosolutely don't know, but they have been ran in engines since I have been old enough to know what they look like with no problems that I know of..

AND don't forget the Vette didn't have an oil slosh problem until they started knocking rods outta the suckers in I think, the LT-5 motor, now did they???

Or the Vega motor not worth a sh-t!!!

As always, jmho... pdq67

PS., what I really don't understand is why GM didn't make an aluminum duplicate out of the tried AND true old motor after knowing that many cast-iron ones worked JUST FINE!! And I don't buy emissions, economy and power differences between the old motor and the new, not in this modern world!!!!!!!!

Ford cross-bolted the cranks on their 427 side-oiler and you can just drill the deck so that the LS-1's cathedral heads will fit b/c they both have the same bore spacing..

They just obsoleted the best motor in the world, again, imho...