I had Castrol GTX Fully Synth in my car for a while and changed my oil yesterday. I used Mobil 1, 10w30 Fully Synth and a Mobil 1 filter. Everything went fine. I moved my car and put my girlfriend's back in her place, then I moved my car again. About 25 minutes later, I left her house to take my used oil to Advance Auto Parts to get rid of it... upon starting my car, I heard a loud ticking sound... a constant, repetitive tick. I revved slightly and the tick sped up with the RPM's. I drove it to Advance, only a mile or two away and left the car running (it was still ticking). I went inside for about 2 minutes, came back outside and the ticking had stopped. It hasn't ticked since (neither on my way home from G/F house last night or on my way to class this morning).

I was wondering if it could have been an issue with Mobil 1. I was afraid it was my HLA's but the ticking only occurred immediately after changing the oil, and hasn't done it since.

Someone also suggested that maybe it was a valve that was about to go out. I was thinking that I may have been low on oil (maybe 1 qt. but probably not much more). Anyone have any suggestions or ideas?

Edit: I have 90,000 miles on the car.

 

It's probably your valves...I remember that my motor made that noise when I had the XD cam installed

 

If you were a little low on oil, and you changed it, it might have been just that. Your HLA's suffer if your too low on oil, but not for jut a quart.
Sometimes, when you have the engine stopped for days, it will do that noise, it's the time the HLA's take to "charge" themselfs with oil, which over time can drain out of them, not big deal. If it's not making that noise anymore, my bet is your OK.

 

Yep yep. My car always does that immediately after I change the oil until the HLA's seem to charge up with oil again. No biggie I think.

 

kinda off topic, but thought id ask quick. I know what HLA stands for..... but what they do?

 

I "think" the cam pushes the HLA, and the HLA in turn actuates the proper valve (exhaust/intake). So the HLA sits between the cam and the valves. Again this is what I think I remember from when I opened up my valve head.

 

Hydraulic Lash Adjusters... what these do is make sure that the cam and lifter are always in constant contact with each other. By pumping them full if oil, they eleminate the need to manually adjust the valves by either shims or turning an adjustment nut. This way, your valves ALWAYS open to their designed lift instead of slowly losing lift as the adjusters go out.. they also make an engine MUCH quieter.

The downside, they do not work well on high revving cars.. and dirty oil will kill them, allowing the oil to drain out and not refill them.

 

That's exactly what it does. I don't know if there are engines where the cam acts directly to the valve, but I guess they put some kind of middle material so that neither the valve nor cam gets warn to fast, afterall, you can always change HLA's or solid lifters.

 

as far as I know.. there are no engines that run directly with the valve on the Cam.. the valve stem would quickly eat a groove in the cam as it does not present a large enough "footprint" to keep wear to a minimum.

 

It could of been yoru Oil filter. I learned this from bobistheoilguy.com forums. Some times certain oil filters has Bypass valve or something that become defective or something.. i dunno you gonna have to check it out at bobistheoilguy.com