rooster<

how do your cam bearing journals look my engine sounded
just like that before my intake cam seized 5-7K miles ago...

 

There was minor wear on all of them, but nothing deeper than .001". I also checked to ensure the cams were true and not bent, and it was only like .0015" wobble... nothing obvious. I know its not the lash because we ran the lash completely out and the sound was still there. I think instead of the feeler gage lash adjustment though we're going to switch to a depth mic. Neither one of us is 100% certain that all of the lashes are 100% on, although we are certain that that isn't the problem. The only time we've gotten the sound to go away was after pulling the oil baffle and pickup, pulling the plugs and the F/I fuse and cranking the piss out of it with a Turbostart. It also went away for about thirty seconds after I reinstalled all of the vtec followers and LMA's, but came back unfortunately. Thanks for gouge, and if I find anything out, I'll pass it along. :thumbup:

Here's the video I meant to post where you can hear it a little better:
Engine knock @ various RPM's

 

oh crap, now I have your sound and my other one on top...
:naughty: few more cars like this and we can make a
tappet orchestra...

yea its like a flat, sharp snappy sound on the same
frequency as a cam, too big for a valve... maybe the
water pump?

 

The Helms manual doesn't have any tolerences for the water pump other than spinning it to make sure the blades clear. My buddy and I have been keeping that in the back of our heads as a possible problem, but with no obvious clanking when you spin it by hand, who knows.

 

yea my friend and I started the process of troubleshooting and...
well water pumps dont sound like that as far as he knows...

 

I'm going to talk to a guy at the next SCCA race who works at a shop that repairs imports, and see if he can help me out. If so, it'll be after the 15th and I'll let you know. My buddy and I have all but given up. The sealant on the rear main seal was ****ty and its leaking about a quart per minute right now, so we're going to end up pulling the tranny and changing that out. The clank is still a boggle. Everyone I've talked to has said rod/main bearings, but mine have been pulled, checked and retorqued three times now since they were replaced, to no avail.

 

I WATCHED BOTH OF THE CLIPS. I HAD A SIMILIAR PROBLEM (unidentifiable rattling) it sounded a little louder in the clip so I'm not sure if its the same,BUT AFTER I TIGHTENED EVERYTHING DOWN, OPENED THE VALVE COVER AND INSPECTED, GOT A VALVE ADJUSTMENT,TOOK OFF THE OIL PAN AND FOUND A SMALL C-CLIP AS BIG AS A DIME, PULLED THE MOTOR AND YANKED APART THE BOTTOM END THINKING IT WAS SOMETHING ELSE TO FIND IT WASN'T, WHEN THIS WAS ALL OVER I LOOKED AT THE HEAD CLOSELY LIFTED THE ROCKER ARMS TO FIND A LOST MOTION ASSY HAD CAME APART. THE CLIP THAT I FOUND IN THE OIL PAN HELD IT TOGETHER SO IT WAS NOW MAKING FULL TRAVEL UNTIL IT HIT THE BOTTOM END OF ROCKER PIVOT. SO I ASSUME THAT IT WAS CAUSING THE ARM TO SLAP AROUND UNCONTROLLED. IT IS STILL APART AT THIS TIME BUT I'LL FOLLOW UP ON THIS. HOPE THIS HELPS IT TOOK ME SEVERAL MONTHS TO FIND THE PROBLEM.