"Ticking" sound from engine

[JFP in PA]

Actually, the spring is under compression when the shaft and seal (#4&5) are installed into the pump housing. With the spring pre compressed to its installed height, if it got hot, if anything it would tend to try and grow slightly in length, increasing the pressure it exerts against the relief valve (#26), raising the pressure at which the valve relieved. An argument could be made that heating the spring could lower its tension slightly at any installed height, potentially offsetting the slight gain from its increase in length, which would probably bring the relief pressure back to somewhere near its ambient temperature starting point.

This design had been around for a long time; if you pulled the oil pump out of a 1955 Chevy 265 V8, you would find it uses pretty much the exact same spring and valve set up. For years (before they realized that oil volume is more critical than pressure to component life), engine builders altered the pump’s pressure characteristics’ by shimming the spring (adding a thin stainless steel washer under one end of the spring) to increase oil pressures, often well beyond 100 PSIG, which often led to other problems. Today, the focus is on delivery volume rather than high pressures, becasue high pressure actually sap horsepower due to the load on the pump. With the M96 design, raising the pressure by altering the spring pressure brings another issue into play as the higher pressures created by the gear section increase the load on the oil pump drive shaft (#3), which is already a weak spot in these engines. LN Engineering developed a heat treated chromoly pump hex drive that sells for about $20 after seeing several engines blow when the OEM hex drive snapped in two. If you are contemplating altering your pump’s pressure profile, you might want to look into replacing the shaft as well.

[stateofidleness]

Gonna steer this back into the realm of what I understand for a quick question

Do I need to worry about doing a "Flush" and all that jazz if I switch to a different brand of oil tomorrow?

I've heard good things about the Castrol stuff, so I may go with that.

I'm still a little confused on what "cold" viscosity I need. 0w40, 5w40 or 10w40?

It's hot here, and only gonna get hotter. Does that equal 10w40?

Thanks guys. I'm actually semi-excited to think that it might quiet the lifters a bit.

[stateofidleness]

1000 internet cool points to whoever can find a coupon or special for Castrol Syntec at a FLAPS (by tomorrow).

looks to be about 8.19 a quart! might as well go for the royal purple for .75 more.

stupid question, but what does the "jug" look like that is recommended? i'm not familiar with the different Castrols.

[shlim8]

Sorry to hijack your thread alittle bit... but i noticed no one answered your question on viscosity of the oil yet...

The opc here recommends 5w50 weight oil for older cars here and I'm currently on 5w50 elf oil. Seems to have quieten down the start up clatter to just a split second after turning the key.

Are there any cons of using the 5w50 weight oil ?? Besides the more sluggish feel ? It is tropical here so the weather is pretty much in the 75-95 degrees F region. I'm just wondering if it'll stress the engine or oil pump or anything else.... I remember the manual recommending a broad range of engine oil weights for the box, even down to 30w (winter ??), but not as high as 50w.

ANd is that anything wrong with the mobil 1 engine oil ?? My indie uses that and I'm due for an oil change now...

[insite]

Originally Posted by shlim8

Sorry to hijack your thread alittle bit... but i noticed no one answered your question on viscosity of the oil yet...

The opc here recommends 5w50 weight oil for older cars here and I'm currently on 5w50 elf oil. Seems to have quieten down the start up clatter to just a split second after turning the key.

Are there any cons of using the 5w50 weight oil ?? Besides the more sluggish feel ? It is tropical here so the weather is pretty much in the 75-95 degrees F region. I'm just wondering if it'll stress the engine or oil pump or anything else.... I remember the manual recommending a broad range of engine oil weights for the box, even down to 30w (winter ??), but not as high as 50w.

ANd is that anything wrong with the mobil 1 engine oil ?? My indie uses that and I'm due for an oil change now...

5w50 is fine. mobil 1 is fine. the additive packages for mobil 1 vary greatly across viscosity grades & people have strong opinions one way or another. as long as your oil change intervals are reasonable, i don't think the additive packages matter all that much. wear is not really the problem in these engines anyway.

[tonycarreon]

Originally Posted by stateofidleness

Do I need to worry about doing a "Flush" and all that jazz if I switch to a different brand of oil tomorrow?

I've heard good things about the Castrol stuff, so I may go with that.

I'm still a little confused on what "cold" viscosity I need. 0w40, 5w40 or 10w40?

It's hot here, and only gonna get hotter. Does that equal 10w40?

Thanks guys. I'm actually semi-excited to think that it might quiet the lifters a bit.

my suggestion, if i were in your shoes:

i would just do a regular oil change - drain the old stuff and put in mobil 1. replace the filter. change to good stuff by 3k or so, depending on how often you drive it. the little bit that would still be in the engine should be okay, if you're doing daily driving. if you're doing track days / ax / HPDE then i would be a lot more thorough and change a lot sooner. it's not like you're going to leave 5 quarts in there.

i would not go with RP, just my opinion. i used RP and found no reason to like it over anything else but it's your $. i didn't notice any ill-effects so it's probably okay. i think some people on the forum don't like RP because they do not have the same certifications that other oils have - (please no new oil wars). i ran it for 6k miles (7 mo). a few people have stuck with mobil 1 and when i do a short fill that's what i use.

but as you've found - never xw-30. i run 10w-40 and drive in the summers. while we don't get to 100+ very often, we do on occasion. i have driven to TX a few times in the summer on 10w-40, done the dragon on 10w-40, ran in porsche-palooza on 10w-40...

[jmatta]

stateof...I used to fill with Royal Purple because my Porsche wrench swore by it. I changed over to Castrol Syntec 10W40 due to it's excellent write-ups and value over RP. I would think in Texas, you'd have even better luck running a 50 weight with the heat. I'd also suggest looking into the LN low temp t-stat and a coolant flush; you could lower your coolant temps by 20-25 degrees, which translates into lower oil temps.

[tdurnan]

Just a note here. I'm from Canada so the xW rating for the oil is important if you drive during the colder months. For a lot of the people from the southern states the W rating on the oil is likely not to apply too much to be honest. It basically covers your cold starts and then the viscosity increases as it heats up.

[thstone]

In LA, whose climate is similar to San Antonio, I use Mobil 1 10-40 High Mileage. Its heavy enough for the summer temps and has a good additive package (hence the high mileage name).

[thstone]

And by the way, running a heavier oil may help your continual lifter ticking noise or it might not.

Really depends on what the problem is with the lifter. But since replacing a lifter is a pretty big job, trying a heavier weight oil is a simple and cheap first step.

[insite]

Originally Posted by JFP in PA

Actually, the spring is under compression when the shaft and seal (#4&5) are installed into the pump housing. With the spring pre compressed to its installed height, if it got hot, if anything it would tend to try and grow slightly in length, increasing the pressure it exerts against the relief valve (#26), raising the pressure at which the valve relieved. An argument could be made that heating the spring could lower its tension slightly at any installed height, potentially offsetting the slight gain from its increase in length, which would probably bring the relief pressure back to somewhere near its ambient temperature starting point.

when the car is off, the spring and piston would be fully extended. when the car is started, oil pressure would force the piston down the bore & compress the spring. through some mechanism, heat will alter the piston's position and, in turn, the oil pressure. i started learning about this aspect of our cars when i first fired it up after installing an accusump. i opened the accusump valve & the pressure guage went sky high! made me nervous as hell. i watched as the car warmed up & the pressure slowly dropped from ~ 105psi to ~17psi at idle. started reading & found that lots of folks have experienced high/low oil pressure issues that were solved by replacing the spring/piston.

Originally Posted by JFP in PA

Today, the focus is on delivery volume rather than high pressures, becasue high pressure actually sap horsepower due to the load on the pump.

right. as long as the oil pressure is above the minimum required to properly actuate all of the hydraulic systems within the engine (lifters, tensioners, etc), then volume is king. it just so happens that at higher RPM's, significant pressure is often required to deliver sufficient volume. pressure without volume is useless.

Originally Posted by JFP in PA

With the M96 design, raising the pressure by altering the spring pressure brings another issue into play as the higher pressures created by the gear section increase the load on the oil pump drive shaft (#3), which is already a weak spot in these engines. LN Engineering developed a heat treated chromoly pump hex drive that sells for about $20 after seeing several engines blow when the OEM hex drive snapped in two. If you are contemplating altering your pump’s pressure profile, you might want to look into replacing the shaft as well.

i put one of these in when i did my 3.4L. for those considering this, be sure to lock TDC & remove the chain tensioner before you pull the oil pump.