454 chevy with ticking noise in headers

86'Chevy · October 10, 2004

Hi folks, new guy here with very little automotive knowledge, and i've got an annoying problem.

I'm probably not going to be able to give you guys nearly enough details about the motor to help pinpoint my troubles, but i'll try and give as much as i can..

I have a friend who runs an auto shop and is a very good mechanic, but he hasn't been able to track down the problem.. he says that it sounds like lifter noise, but it's not coming from the valve covers, he's put a stethescope and listened all over the motor and says that he hears it coming from each header pipe on both sides of the engine.

He's adusted the valves a couple of times to try and get rid of the noise to no avail..

My truck is an 86' Chevy CK10 4x4, that was originally a 305, which swapped for a 350, and then more recently for a 454. It has headers, but i couldn't tell you what brand or model, and has dual exhaust without catalytic convertors. It has a 750 edelbrock carb.. i don't know what model the intake manifold is -if it's important, i can ask my friend later. The Carbeurator has a problem with it's accelerator pump because the d**n truck sat for almost 2 years waiting to be finished getting worked on. I'm not sure what year the motor is, but it old enough that it didn't have a serpentine belt system to begin with, my mechanic friend has adapted it to serpentine though.

The problem is that he wasn't the one who put the motor together, and i had all sorts of problems with the guys who did.. long story which won't get into here. There were all sorts of problems.. pulleys not lining up, the timing was off by 3 teeth -dumb crap like that. My buddy ( the one whose done the most recent work on it) -has got things pretty much straightened out, but it's still got that d**n noise in the headers.

Does anyone have any idea why it would make a ticking noise in the headers? Would beefier headers with thicker pipes, muffle that noise?

lrymal · October 10, 2004

....Does anyone have any idea why it would make a ticking noise in the headers? Would beefier headers with thicker pipes, muffle that noise?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

No solution, just a comment.... ages ago, when muscle cars were still king and gasoline was $0.32/gallon, headers were the rage and I recall that every header that I heard had a ticking/clicking sound. To this day, I'm not sure why.

86'Chevy · October 10, 2004

Thanks for the comment, Irymal.. someone mentioned to me a similar comment -that sometimes "they just make noise"

I'm hoping i can cure this issue.. because it's driving me nuts going down the road, especially if i'm in town and the echo makes more pronounced. It almost sounds like an exaust leak, though i know that's not the case.

It's also just not getting the extra kick that i thought it would with the big block going from the smaller 350.

Can i expect a *lot* of improvement when the carbuerator gets rebuilt?

knez · October 10, 2004

I have had this problem with previous cars/trucks Ive owned It might have something to do with quality of header or thickness of the metal used on header.I put a set of jba shortys on my previous truck 95 350 tbi 1500 and had this problem switched to the dougthorleys tri ys and got rid of 90% of the ticking noise I think they do all make noise to a point some just alot worse then others.hope this Helps.

86'Chevy · October 11, 2004

Thanks guys,

I'll look into what's available for new Headers..

At least i've gotten a couple more opinions suggesting that there's nothing seriously wrong with the motor (sounds like hell though)

As a side note.. i have to claim a momentary lapse of judgement today. Not more than a couple of hours ago, i got into an accident with the truck.. I was heading home down a fairly busy two lane highway and came upon a car probably 200 or more feet ahead of me, that suddenly hit the brakes.. he didn't have his turn signal on, and i still had time to wait and see what he was going to do.. so i waited a few seconds, he was still moving at a decent clip -30 or so- and went to pass him accelerating from 50 mph or so and got into the gas a little bit. Immediately after i went to go around him, he went to pull into a driveway on the left that i hadn't seen. I didn't see it because the house he was pulling into had *two* drives and he wasn't turning into the first one -which was the main path to the house and was more obvious, he was turning into the less obvious and unmarked drive which was about 40 feet past the first one.

I caught him before he could get his car turned too far, and i was able to swerve a bit, so the collision wasn't near as dramatic as it might have been and was more of a scraping than an impact.

Thankfully, neither of us was hurt -or rather thankfully *he* wasn't hurt. I was a lot safer in my pickup than he was in the shoebox on wheels he was in. As it was neither vehicle was totalled but the passenger side of my truck is messed up pretty badly.. as was the side of the guy's car.

I didn't get a ticket, but the kid i hit was trying to claim that he *had* put on his turn signal.. which is BS. I saw his brake lights and i admit that it was stupid to go around him without waiting longer to see what he was going to do, but i sure as Hell wouldn't have tried to pass him if he'd had his signal on.. i mean come on! My job requires me to drive hundreds of miles a week, i know what a turn signal looks like.

It makes me sick to look at the side of the thing My brother is a body specialist and did an awesome job of smoothing the dings out and painting it.. i'd just washed and waxed it the day before it was gleaming blue and looking great.. now it's trashed. Makes me sick to my stomach.

I was able to drive it home, and i don't think any damage was done other than cosmetic, but it really just has taken the wind out of my sails.

I suppose i should just shut up and be thankful that it wasn't worse than it was.. somebody could easily have been hurt. Man, i haven't been in an accident since i was a teenager, and even then i didn't hit anybody else. This really shook me up.

94z71 · October 19, 2004

this vehicle does not solid lifters correct? Obviously it should not have solid lifters for your year model, but it's an engine swap and you mentioned trouble with engine builders etc