The Jensen Owners' Club

Hi all

Wonder if you can help with a rather frustrating noise.I've recently completed the top end of my mopar 440 and I get a ticking noise, reasonably loud (I'm assuming tappet) for about 5 or 6 seconds only when starting the car after it has been left overnight. I think it is only coming from one side and perhaps towards the front of the rocker cover. Once it goes the engine sounds great and I can start it all day and there is no noise. I only get it briefly on initial startup after the car has been left overnight. 
As part of the rebuild the engine has new edelbrock ally e-street heads, edelbrock performer cam and lifters, pushrods  comp cams roller rockers. I set the lifter pre-load to ¾ turn initially and tried reducing to ½ turn yesterday but this didn't make any difference. 

The cam break in went well, the tappets were noisily for the first minute or two but were then quiet. 
Oil wise, I'm running Lucas classic car oil 20/50 and a Fram filter. 
Any thoughts on what I should do here. Do I just live it as a 'feature', try messing about with the pre-load again or perhaps try different oils / filters.

Thanks for any advice,
Alex

Of course it should not make any noise but that being said if it goes away in a few seconds I would not worry about it. Try using 10w40 oil instead. What kind of oil filter is on it? What is the oil pressure and does it come up as the engine is cranking over?

Likely to be an exhaust manifold blow, that decreases as the manifold/head warms up.