I've noticed a tapping noise when I get on the throttle. It dissapears when I get off the gas or when Im cruising. Is this the sign of something serious, or do I just need to have the valves adjusted? I was always under the impression that our valves didnt need to be adjusted 'cause we have some kind of hydraulic lash adjuster or something like that. Can somebody shed some light on the subject for me and advise what I can/should do? Thanks.

jason

Not to alarm you unnecessarily, but in an sr20 that sort of noise could always be the onset of rod knock. I know most of the non-se-r people I showed my white car to back when it was tapping (before I found the culprit and replaced the rod bearings) diagnosed its rod knock as a valve noise.

Josh

Did you do that job yourself? That sounds like a serious job to do. Whatever it is, it couldnt come at a better time, Im unemployed right now for god knows how long in this horrible economy. Damn Damn Damn. Maybe its time to sell the classic. I have a few other things wrong with it but no money fix it. :(

jason

Yeah, I've done it myself twice, once on each of my cars. But I'm sort of a nut. Plus I worked as a tech at a Nissan dealer, so I have some idea what I'm doing under a car (not that much though :)). One simple way to check for the problem is to pull spark plug wires one at a time, so that the car is running on 3 cylinders. If the noise goes away or significantly lessens when you pull a particular wire, then that cylinder that you pulled is the one with the bad bearing. Of couse if you have more than one bad bearing this test doesn't work - chances are it will only be one if it's early though. Have you run the car low on oil anytime recently, by chance?

Josh

Cool, I'll try testing it like you described. No, I never let the oil get low, I check it religiously.

jason

Yeah, we do have hydraulic lash adjusters, so I would assume they dont need adjusting. I think the lifters have hydraulic fluid in them and the lifters take up any slack, or something like that.

The HVLAs just have engine oil in them. On my other car, an 89 Mercury Tracer (Mazda 323), the HVLAs would get slack and the valves would tick if the engine oil level ran low. Never had the SE-Rs run low enough to find out if they do the same (and I hope I never do).

Josh