Anyone know of a good writeup on how to replace these? My car makes a constant high-pitched ticking noise coming from the intake manifold/valve cover area. It counds almost like someone jingling their car keys. I've been told that this is a sign of bad LMA's. Any info or leads are much appreciated, thanks.

 

I don't know of any writeups but it is pretty straight forward. I just replaced mine a couple months ago. The symptom of bad LMA's is a ticking in the head that isn't injectors, nor can it be remedied with a valve lash adjustment. It is fairly common with B16 heads but it can happen to any vtec head. Here is how I did it:

1. Remove valve cover.
2. Loosen and remove timing belt from cam gears.
3. Remove cam holders and cams.
4. Unscrew the rocker shaft sealing bolts (they are torqued in there pretty good, so be patient).
5. Remove both the intake and exhaust rocker shaft orifice. They are located on the timing belt side on the top of the head. Use a pair of pliers to pull them out.
6. Rubber band every rocker arm together to prevent them from coming apart when the shaft is removed.
7. Screw a 12mm bolt into the end of the rocker shaft and slowly pull until the #4 cylinder rocker arms are free from the shaft and remove the rocker arm assembly. Repeat with #2 and #3 cylinders.
8. This is the tricky part: The rocker shaft does not clear the frame in order to get the cylinder 1 rocker arms out, so you can go about this two ways. The first way is to remove the motor mount on that side and use a jack to get the engine up far enough to completely remove the shaft (you can only do this if you don't have polyurethane mounts). The other way (I had to do it this way because I have poly mounts) is to remove the distributor, vtec solenoid, and the sealing bolts on the other side in order to slide the shafts out the other way to replace the lost motion assemblies on cylinder 1.
9. Replacing the LMA's are easy, just everything else is a bitch. Pull them out with your fingers and replace with new ones.
10. Reinstall everything in reverse order. It is probably a good idea to replace the washers on the sealing bolts, the o-rings on the shaft orifices, and the valve cover gasket (if necessary).

 

Wow, very informative. Thanks alot. Now I just gotta go out and buy these expensive little parts. :happysad:

 

Yeah, they are way expensive. I bought used ones off someone here but they were still $100 or so.

If you get confused, check out the Helms manual in the FAQ for pictures of what I am referring to.