valve click

[Thighs]

my miata has 181k on the original motor. its been very well kept but it gets REALLY bad valve tick sometimes. does anybody know any solutions to this on does it not matter enough to worry about?

[AnthonyF]

I dont know Mazda motors that well, you might be able to do what Honda owners to which is a valve adjustment. Call Mazda and see if the procedure is capable of being done. If not, you could always take your head off (since it's not that hard on a miata) and take it to a head shop and get them to service it (go with DOVER). You will gain a lil bit of hp at the same time. :goodjob:


Its nothing to really worry about, but it is annoying and your valves arent getting opened to the fullest like the used to.

[Roadster]

Hey Jesse, I'm sure Matt could tell you all about that problem. You're hearing the legendary HLA (hydraulic lash adjuster) clatter. It's caused by the lifters not getting pumped up. Assuming your oil pressure is sufficient, it usually means your oil is a bit too dirty to make it through the tiny ass passages to fill up the lifter.

Solution: change your oil a lot. I do mine every 2000 miles or so. Castrol GTX is the only oil my car likes.

As soon as my car starts clattering on a hot start (cold start will usually do it momentarily even when the oil is fresh), I'll go ahead and change the oil. Cheap way to keep the car happy and healthy.

[six7teen]

i use to have a miata and it did the exact same thing! i never got a chance of fixing it. but for some odd reason, when i ran a higher test gas, it cut down on the valves tapping a little bit. it might have just been in my head, but it doesnt hurt to try.

[Kaiser]

If your problem reacted to higher octane gas then it probably wasn't valve clatter but rather pinging. There's a difference in cause, though to the untrained (And sometimes even the trained) ear, it can sound extremely similar. A noise coming from the valves themselves should not change when you change the octane in the gas.

If the valves are not opening and closing properly it could be causing pinging by the a/f mix being improper somehow and that would be the only valve problem I can imagine that would react to the higher octane gas. You could have even had a combination of two problems, valve clatter (what remained after you used the higher octane gas) and a pinging problem that could be related or not.

To the OP: straight6 probably hit the nail on the head with his suggestion. Try changing the oil and trying that out, and make sure you put in the exact full amount. Cars with hydraulic lifters can make a horrible racket when they're low on oil, or if the oil isn't flowing properly. Also make sure you're running the proper weights for the temperatures, as the recent cold could be contributing if combined with higher weight oils.

Let us know if you get any changes, maybe it could help us narrow the solution down if nothing else, though TM4.0's idea of having the head cleaned ported & polished is a great idea by itself. It really will make a noticable difference in how the car responds.

[metalman]

Swing on by with the $$ you owe me and I'll tell you how to fix it. ;)

[Thighs]

ive been by a couple times since i pmmed you but i cant catch you. ill try again tomorrow morning before i go to work.

if you arent there, ill put it in the mailbox. oh, i need to talk to you about some parts for a friend too.

[lonnied]

One of my cars is a 1990 miata and it only has 84,000 and it had the HLA problem a lot of miata's have. Through a miata forum I heard people using Marvel Mystery Oil so I tried it and it went away within 5 minutes of running. Change your oil and sub the marvel mystery oil for a quart of oil and it cleans the HLA out great. It doesn't hurt to change your oil again after you have driven a few hundred miles, but this stuff works great and you can even put it in your gas but use much less according to the bottle.

[KPowerEP3]

Both of my cars have notorious Hydraulic lifter tick, just like straight6 said, has to do with the oil getting to and pressurizing the lifters, also, to what lonnied said, it's worth a shot maybe, but I've heard that MMO is hit and miss for lifter tick, a lot of the DSM guys do a couple of oil changes with it and it helps, others not at all. Didn't help in my DSM, and in the Miata, I just changed the oil, and even on cold starts it quieted down a good bit. Granted, I did go to a slightly thinner oil.