Help From JGYcustoms.com

Does your SR20 have a "TAP-A-TAP-A-TAP-A-TAP" noise? The most likely suspect is air in the lifters. If you look at my finger location in the picture, I'm pushing down on the back of the rocker arm on the section that rides above the lifter. While pressing, if you feel any movement, you have air in that specific lifter. SR20 lifters are hydraulic but can not bleed themselves like most hydraulic lifters. To bleed your lifters you must remove your valve cover, the cams, and rocker arms. Pull the lifter out of its sleeve making note not to tilt it sideways, submerse it in oil, and insert a thin piece of rigid metal inside the hole on top of the lifter. Keep in mind, entire lifter must be completely submersed in oil. You will feel a groove with your metal probe, if you press down it will compress the internal mechanism. Do this repeatedly, many times, or until it doesn't depress anymore. Carefully insert it back into the sleeve without tipping it so that air does not enter it. Reinstall the rocker arms, cams, and valve cover and listen to see if the noise persists.

I hope their info helped you out

 

thanks for the info but does it hurt anything if there is air in there?

 

well air compresses... so at high RPM i assume it would be possible to have the rocker arm float and possibly fall off... which would SUCK

 

try putting in a cup of ATF in the oil. it's a tad thinner and might be able to work it's sefe in there. if not do like the "Help From JGYcustoms" but use ATF. when i pull my head, i always toss the lifters, in order, in a gridded tackle box and fill it with some synth atf.

 

i have heard just dont drive hard and dont wait like a year to fix it, lol.

 

i belive thats why you get rocker arm stoppers so they dont float at high rpms

 

i belive thats why you get rocker arm stoppers so they dont float at high rpms

That is true... but if there was air in the lifters, they wouldnt do anything. The way they work is by holding down the pivot end of the rocker arms which is where the lifter is located. They require the oil pressure of the engine for the lifter to push the rocker arm up against the stopper. If there is air in the lifter, then the cam can push the lifter down and then create a gap either between the rocker and cam or the rocker and stopper. You don't want the lifters to compress at all, which is why it is important to have them bled.

 

Thanks for everyones help! The car is stored for winter so I won't be driving on it any more. I will have to fix this problem sometime while it is stored.
Thanks again!

 

your in michigan, enjoying the cold weather?

 

The cold weather sucks... but I currently have the valve cover off and pushed on the back of the rocker arm and no movement. so what else could it be? a noisy injector?? It gets louder after I really rag on the car. :12dunno I think it is my injector but is this bad?? it goes tap tap tap, and directly related to the RPM it does it at idle and all through the RPM range. Hard to hear at high RPMs because the tapping gets so close together.

 

sorry to say it, but you might have spun a bearing also man.........

 

I dont think so... reason being is that noise isn't coming from the oil pan area at all. you can hardly hear it down there. It is directly by my 3rd injector back on top. I'm allmost sure it is my injector because before i got my SR running right it was running 100+ psi throught the stock injectors. Could that be why it is causing them to be so noisy? And does this mean that my injectors are bad? You check for a spun rod or baring by listening by the oil pan? Right?

 

get a piece of heater hose, start your car up, hold the heater hose up to your ear, and move the other end of the hose around the motor, and try to pin point exactly where the sound is coming from.

 

Ok i just did that and I pinpointed the sound from the 3rd injector back.

 

Check your oil pan for metal bits.

 

I changed out 3 of my lifters and decided to take a lifter apart. I found very small peices of metal in side the lifter. The little nipple in the lifter goes down in the lifter about a half of an inch. There is a very tight clearance btween the base of the nipple piece and the lifter's inner walls. Small bits of metal and trash wereprobably the culprit with my tapping. Since I changed the lifters out my tapping is gone. Thank the lord.

 

hey where did you get your lifters from? and how much?

 

The Nissan dealership has them, or can order them. Takes like 2 days for them to get. I get 92 sentra se-r 2.0 liter --- lifters. So far I have 5 in my motor. They are 58 dollars apiece.