1.6L engine help

I pushed my lil 1.6L pretty hard a month ago when at the Miatas at the Gap
event. It's wonderfull driving fun! Lots of high rpm 2nd gear stuff. I
didn't bump the rev limiter but certain times I probably hung around that
6000 to 6500 range for awhile. My car has 135k and has been well taken care
of, it probably had about 2000 since last oil change. Toward the end of my
week there I started to have some very bad noise in the upper end of the
motor. It was kind of like the typical miata lifter noise when your oil
starts to get near 3 or 4k after an oil change, but much louder and scarier.
At higher rpm it seemed to go away but was nasty enough to scare me off from
pushing my luck. I pulled my valve cover and along with a more experienced
engine guy, we looked it over. On both exhaust valves on the front-most
cylinder (with the cam lobe up / away from the lifter) you can push the
lifter down (probably 1/8") with medium presure. When we tried that on the
other lifter that were not interacting with a cam lobe, they didn't seem to
push down with this same (or even a bit more) force. Question; did we locate
the problem? What is it? Damaged lifters? Damaged valve springs?

Any help appreciated!

Chris
92BB&T

Chris D'Agnolo wrote:
> I pushed my lil 1.6L pretty hard a month ago when at the Miatas at the Gap
> event. It's wonderfull driving fun! Lots of high rpm 2nd gear stuff. I
> didn't bump the rev limiter but certain times I probably hung around that
> 6000 to 6500 range for awhile. My car has 135k and has been well taken care
> of, it probably had about 2000 since last oil change. Toward the end of my
> week there I started to have some very bad noise in the upper end of the
> motor. It was kind of like the typical miata lifter noise when your oil
> starts to get near 3 or 4k after an oil change, but much louder and scarier.
> At higher rpm it seemed to go away but was nasty enough to scare me off from
> pushing my luck. I pulled my valve cover and along with a more experienced
> engine guy, we looked it over. On both exhaust valves on the front-most
> cylinder (with the cam lobe up / away from the lifter) you can push the
> lifter down (probably 1/8") with medium presure. When we tried that on the
> other lifter that were not interacting with a cam lobe, they didn't seem to
> push down with this same (or even a bit more) force. Question; did we locate
> the problem? What is it? Damaged lifters? Damaged valve springs?
>
> Any help appreciated!
>
> Chris
> 92BB&T
>
>

Hi Chris,
another miata that I drove had similar symptoms and ended up needing
four of the lifters replaced, iirc, along with a valve adjustment. I
don't remember what the cost was, this was on a '96 1.8 liter.

I don't know how good your mechanic is in Houston, but we have an
excellent miata specialist here who charges very reasonable rates. It
might be worth the drive to Austin to let him check it out, though I
think that costs about $100.00 in gas even in a miata these days. ;-)

Good luck!

Pat

Thanks Pat but this sounds too bad to make a 150 mile trek. Thank goodness I
had trailered the car to the gap (contrary to my preferences). My buddy has
been a test engineer @ Shell Oil forever, tearing down and building up and
anylizing wear but it was funny when he was looking over my shop manual /
car, he was commenting on how they do things 'these days'. I reminded him
that 'these days' was 13 years ago! He got a chuckle out of that. We do have
Alara racing here in Houston, if I get in a bind I may end up with the car
over there. Hopefully I'll be able to fix it myself and learn something in
the process.

Chris
92BB&T

"pws" > wrote in message
...
> Chris D'Agnolo wrote:
>> I pushed my lil 1.6L pretty hard a month ago when at the Miatas at the
>> Gap event. It's wonderfull driving fun! Lots of high rpm 2nd gear stuff.
>> I didn't bump the rev limiter but certain times I probably hung around
>> that 6000 to 6500 range for awhile. My car has 135k and has been well
>> taken care of, it probably had about 2000 since last oil change. Toward
>> the end of my week there I started to have some very bad noise in the
>> upper end of the motor. It was kind of like the typical miata lifter
>> noise when your oil starts to get near 3 or 4k after an oil change, but
>> much louder and scarier. At higher rpm it seemed to go away but was nasty
>> enough to scare me off from pushing my luck. I pulled my valve cover and
>> along with a more experienced engine guy, we looked it over. On both
>> exhaust valves on the front-most cylinder (with the cam lobe up / away
>> from the lifter) you can push the lifter down (probably 1/8") with medium
>> presure. When we tried that on the other lifter that were not interacting
>> with a cam lobe, they didn't seem to push down with this same (or even a
>> bit more) force. Question; did we locate the problem? What is it? Damaged
>> lifters? Damaged valve springs?
>>
>> Any help appreciated!
>>
>> Chris
>> 92BB&T
>
> Hi Chris,
> another miata that I drove had similar symptoms and ended up needing four
> of the lifters replaced, iirc, along with a valve adjustment. I don't
> remember what the cost was, this was on a '96 1.8 liter.
>
> I don't know how good your mechanic is in Houston, but we have an
> excellent miata specialist here who charges very reasonable rates. It
> might be worth the drive to Austin to let him check it out, though I think
> that costs about $100.00 in gas even in a miata these days. ;-)
>
> Good luck!
>
> Pat
>

Chris D'Agnolo wrote:
> Thanks Pat but this sounds too bad to make a 150 mile trek. Thank goodness I
> had trailered the car to the gap (contrary to my preferences). My buddy has
> been a test engineer @ Shell Oil forever, tearing down and building up and
> anylizing wear but it was funny when he was looking over my shop manual /
> car, he was commenting on how they do things 'these days'. I reminded him
> that 'these days' was 13 years ago! He got a chuckle out of that. We do have
> Alara racing here in Houston, if I get in a bind I may end up with the car
> over there. Hopefully I'll be able to fix it myself and learn something in
> the process.
>
> Chris
> 92BB&T
>
> "pws" > wrote in message
> ...

Probably the only option left is to buy my 1.8 liter engine, rebuild it
with forged everything and hook up a FM turbo. May as well put the
driveline and torsen from the '96 in there while you are at it.
Come on, you have a few thousand dollars burning a hole in your pocket,
don't you? :-)

I had a friend who could actually convince his wife of such things,
like that adding a turbo was required to fix noisy valves. It was
amazing to watch.

Good luck!

Pat

I don't have any friends who are that 'good' or any friends wives who I
would consider that gulible. It would however, be quite entertaining to
watch in action.

Thanks for the 1.8 offer but I'm thinking more of cutting my loses here and
finding the simplest way of getting her back up and running like stock at
this point.

Chris
92BB&T

"pws" > wrote in message
...
> Chris D'Agnolo wrote:
>> Thanks Pat but this sounds too bad to make a 150 mile trek. Thank
>> goodness I had trailered the car to the gap (contrary to my preferences).
>> My buddy has been a test engineer @ Shell Oil forever, tearing down and
>> building up and anylizing wear but it was funny when he was looking over
>> my shop manual / car, he was commenting on how they do things 'these
>> days'. I reminded him that 'these days' was 13 years ago! He got a
>> chuckle out of that. We do have Alara racing here in Houston, if I get in
>> a bind I may end up with the car over there. Hopefully I'll be able to
>> fix it myself and learn something in the process.
>>
>> Chris
>> 92BB&T
>>
>> "pws" > wrote in message
>> ...
>
> Probably the only option left is to buy my 1.8 liter engine, rebuild it
> with forged everything and hook up a FM turbo. May as well put the
> driveline and torsen from the '96 in there while you are at it.
> Come on, you have a few thousand dollars burning a hole in your pocket,
> don't you? :-)
>
> I had a friend who could actually convince his wife of such things, like
> that adding a turbo was required to fix noisy valves. It was amazing to
> watch.
>
> Good luck!
>
> Pat

Chris D'Agnolo wrote:
> I don't have any friends who are that 'good' or any friends wives who I
> would consider that gulible. It would however, be quite entertaining to
> watch in action.
>
> Thanks for the 1.8 offer but I'm thinking more of cutting my loses here and
> finding the simplest way of getting her back up and running like stock at
> this point.
>
> Chris
> 92BB&T

I was really just kidding, I am tearing that 1.8 liter down.

Good luck on the repairs!

Pat