roodabigman

Problem Solved! I feel stupid, I obviously missed something the first time i pulled the rockers. fairtax, tbolt, you guys had it 100% right, when I pulled the rockers again, there was a glob of gunk clogging the oil inlet hole on the rocker shaft, it looked completely obstructed. Fairtax - you were right about the exhaust lifters too! On closer inspection, they were all stuck in position, and it took some real force in the oil path to break them loose and get them moving again. You are a gentlemen and a scholar. I bled and pumped up all 8 HLAs, used compressed air and brake cleaner to get every piece clean as a whistle, oiled everything up, put it back in the engine, and the second the engine fired, it purred like a kitten. drove it 200 miles home from my dads place, still sounds great. Thank you to everyone on this thread who helped me pinpoint this, it makes me smile every time i start the car now On a side note, the EJ22 is really an impressive engine. at 190k miles, the cams and rocker arms looked perfect. even having been driving for probably 1000 miles starved of oil, every surface looked perfect, not flat spots, no dull areas. I've seen German engines after 50k miles where the cams looked MUCH worse than this. Truly an impressive accomplishment for Subaru.

so... This is definitely lifter tick! What is causing it is still a mystery. I pulled off the rocker arms on the driver side head today. ALL 4 of the intake HLAs were completely collapsed, full of nothing but air. All 4 of the exhaust HLAs were fine. There were no obstructions of the holes in the main shaft or the rocker arms themselves, everything actually looked really clean. Obviously the fact that all of the intake HLAs had lost oil, and the exhaust were fine made me very suspicious. I replaced the collapsed HLAs with the 4 i just bought, oiled everything up, and put the head back together. fired up the car, sounded ok for about 2 seconds, then some ticking started coming back. it was variable for a few minutes. After actually driving it, it is back to exactly the way it was before changing the HLAs. I would put real money on when i pull the rocker arms again, the intake HLAs are collapsed. So why would all of the intake HLAs collapse almost instantly? The only thing I can think of is oil pressure. The intake HLAs are on the top side, the exhaust on the bottom. so for 1, gravity is helping the bottom lifters and hindering the top. 2nd, the exhaust rocker arms do not have any external holes?? it looks like oil comes in off the shaft, and thats it, no exit except into the HLA. On the intake rocker arms, there is a pinhole on the end. Im guessing this is to let oil come out the top of the rocker arm, then it drips down over the rockers and makes sure everything stays nice and lubricated. the problem is, if this is simply an oil pressure problem, why does it only happen on one head of the engine?? didnt have a chance to check the oil pressure, is the only way to do it to remove the alternator to get to the oil pressure switch?

Thanks for the info!! That will help me a lot, I will tackle this project this weekend. Didn't even think about taking apart the rocker assembly to be sure theres no gunk stuck in there, thats money. Thanks again, feeling more confident about the project now. Awesome. Thats what I'm hoping. Will definitely pull the oil pump and look at it when i do the timing belt, hopefully within the next couple weeks. Would probably be better to do them all at one i guess - valve rocker and HLA maintenance, timing belt, oil pump.

Thanks John! I have 4 new HLA's along with the valve cover gaskets, in case some of the HLAs are collapsed and dont want to pump back up. Hopefully more than 4 aren't toast.... The oil is another thing I forgot to mention, it does seem to have a slight oil leak. The oil is full, and i never notice a change in the level, but the underside of the engine, especially the oil pan, always seems to be slightly wet with fresh oil. The strange thing is that it never drips, have left it parked for days without a single drip, and let it idle in place for 20 minutes and watched the underside, no drips. Naturally this makes it very hard to tell where the oil is coming from. If it is the HLAs ticking, i definitely will get all new idlers, tensioner, timing belt, maybe even cam seals and crankshaft seal, and clean and reseal the oil pump while im in there. I just want to see if I can figure out if it is a rod knock, in which case i wouldnt want to sink the 300 bucks into parts on the front-end, since it would be near the end of its life. I'll ask around to see if someone has an oil pressure tester, thanks for all the help!!

Thanks grossgary! I'll have a look at the timing belt tensioner this weekend when i pull the lifters to look at them. for the piston slap - it does get quieter a bit as it warms up - but not a lot - what you hear in the video is the engine fully warmed up to operating temperature. If i can eliminate the lifters and timing belt tensioner this weekend, I can check between rod knock and piston slap by putting a thicker oil in, right? I won't drive it forever like that, but I think a thicker oil should quiet down piston slap, but have little to no effect on rod knock?

I recently picked up a 96 legacy OB, 190k miles, fairly complete maintenance records to 175k, EJ22 motor, manual tranny. The engine makes a ton of noise, which I have gathered is normal, but the ticking / knocking is louder than most videos I have looked at. Initially i assumed lifter tick - replaced 1 qt oil with MMO, drove around. 500 miles later, not difference, if anything it is louder now... Bought some valve cover gaskets, plan to pull the lifters this weekend and see what they look like. Thought it might be a fuel injector, so i tried disconnecting each of the injectors on the driver side one at a time, no difference. symptoms: coming from driver side head (seemingly). louder from above the engine than if i crawl underneath. Tried to do some ghetto stethoscoping, but wasnt able to pinpoint it. Noise is present cold OR warm, idle or rev, coast or accelerate. Noise does get a little quieter when warm, but is still very much present. car drives fine, doesnt have all that much power, but I am not familiar enough with the ej22 to know if it is "normal" or not. No CEL or pending trouble codes in the computer (once i cleared the ones from my injector test ). video of engine running here: http://youtu.be/gzz8o9zHDYE I also looked at the sound clip, tick is every 2 engine revolutions, unfortunately most everything it could be happens once every 2 revs... it sounds too high pitch to be a rod knock, too deep to be lifter tick, too quiet under the engine to be a crank bearing, could be piston slap? I think piston slap would change more as it warms up, and it is never really cold here in CA, so the engine is never started all that cold. Plus I though piston slap would get quieter with a disconnected fuel injector? any suggestions would be appreciated! I love my sooby, but its a bit embarrassing to drive through downtown like this....