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I have a crate 3400 motor in my car right now using 5-30w synthetic oil with about 7-8k miles on it..Ever since the colder days has been around (living in FL lol) when i start my car after sitting for a while, my lifters are LOUD ASS HELL!!! almost as if the car had no oil or had 500k+ miles...

but after the car warms up the sound from the lifters goes away and drives normal??? Is this normal? Could it be the synthetic oil? or just the cold motor? cause the motor has perfect amount of oil, so im not sure what is causing this abnormal sound of the lifters from starting up??? (like i said i just starting to notice this since the colder days)


thank you

probably not lifter noise, its piston slap. more common with rebuilds since the piston may have been reused in a honed cylinder creating more free play till they warm up and expand some.

3X00-Modified wrote:probably not lifter noise, its piston slap. more common with rebuilds since the piston may have been reused in a honed cylinder creating more free play till they warm up and expand some.

so with me using synthetic oil, couldnt be the issue?

no I always use synthetic.

3X00-Modified wrote:probably not lifter noise, its piston slap. more common with rebuilds since the piston may have been reused in a honed cylinder creating more free play till they warm up and expand some.

That is freaken lazy and poor workmanship.

Damn Mike I thought you had a good thing going there.

Crate motor... means it was a rebuild from somewhere and yeah what do you expect... the art of mechanics is dropping off faster than the fiscal cliff!

Whatever is cheap and quick these days... I'm sure it was re-maned in Mexico or somewhere else.

Man 3X00 you are right!

I remember in shop class we rebuilt a SBC. I got high marks for rechecking the main bearings with plastigauge. They were off by a very small amount and my teacher sent the crank to the machine shop. I'd bet money that some of those re-mans end up going out the door like that.

So this means I may have defective motor? :/

I wouldn't worry about it, most of the LS-series small block chevy's have piston slap from the factory. They say it's not an issue and only sounds bad. I would have felt weird about it, but my 6.0L LQ4 engine still does it on cold start up (varying in length based on ambient temp) but it's well over 220,000miles and it's still one of the best parts of the truck. The PO replaced the transmission once, then I replaced the rear axle, the transfer case and transmission and the exhaust and the front suspension at least once LOL but the engine and front diff are pretty much all original.

If you want to quiet it down, try running some Lucas oil stabilizer at the next oil change. I know it sounds stupid to run a thicker oil package in winter, but believe me, it won't hurt your engine at all to run even 15W40 and Lucas oil. I've done it with almost all of my engines and i've never had an oil pressure issue even in -60* temperatures. I've never had an engine go bad on me, so I hope that says something.

15W40 won't cold flow as quick as a 5W30 synthetic, but the difference is negligible with todays oil packages. Their are multiple benefits to using a lighter grade synthetic, but it doesn't exactly pass my test of keeping the top end quiet during the winter. But this purely my experience and i can only say that the lighter grade oil would drainback to the pan before the engine was cold enough to nearly freeze. A thicker oil was probably more likely to be left in the upper cylinder/head because it would "thicken" up faster as the temperature dropped.

Anyway, I gotta stop typing.

haha thanks alot man..yeah i had a feeling that it was something that i just have to deal with, because the car runs fine and idles fine...and for some reason my car sounds like its cammed out???? but ill definitely will try out the Lucas Oil treatment and see how it runs...thanks for your input and ill be sure to let you know how it works out

It should not sound like its "cammed out"... if it does you have another issue somewhere else.

Regarding piston slap it's pretty typical as noted but in your situation I'm sure it's exaggerated due to the way the engine was put together. And really there is nothing you can do about it other than rebuild/replace pistons and such, and have them properly fitted. It may also be due to the material of the pistons depending on if they did use OEM or cheaper replacements.

Did you check the upper intake gasket with carb cleaner Mike?

Money pit Beretta wrote:Did you check the upper intake gasket with carb cleaner Mike?

umm im sure it was clean...but i do still have the 3100 intakes on when i purchased the motor, i only got the long block with the 3yr 36k mile warranty

If Lucas doesn't shut it up, then I would pull the valve covers (if you have the time) to check the valvetrain.

96B-Mike wrote:

Money pit Beretta wrote:Did you check the upper intake gasket with carb cleaner Mike?

umm im sure it was clean...but i do still have the 3100 intakes on when i purchased the motor, i only got the long block with the 3yr 36k mile warranty

Clean is not the point. It was to check for leaks.