my 5.3 started ticking from driver side, can hear it better through wheel well, and under acceleration pops through exhaust. oil pressure is perfect and everything checked out on lap top, all cylinders firing, knock sensors not picking up anything and no codes. Im thinking its a bad lifter on exhaust side. i drained the oil and cut open the filter, no bearing material, but two very tiny pieces of metal that could be be from a lifter. but between the tick and pop in exhaust a lifter is what im thinking. Going to my tuner tomorrow and were pulling the valve covers and taking a look. If it is a lifter, then ill pull both heads and have them worked, change lifters and such. If it turns out i have a much bigger issue, i got a deal on a complete lq4, intake to pan for 450, have it freshened up and throw that in.

 

no opinions?

 

Burnt valve, cam lobe.. Hard to tell you need to run a compression test.

 

i say cam lobe, had samn thing happen to me

 

whens the last time you did a tune up? check your plug wires. if its not firing then its dumping fuel and its not burning, which will give it a tap then pop as the throttle is pressed.

 

Try a vacuum gauge and see if the reading is steady or if it fluctuates.

 

Ticking could be spark arcing , without hearing the sounds , it's kinda hard to speculate because there are quite a few possibilities . Good luck

 

+1, people don't use this useful tool enough these days IMO, every good diagnostic technician should have one in his tool box and know how to use it. Here's a quick reference, you can find more if you go to google images and type in "vacuum gauge readings":

 

could be the same thing that happened to me.

 

Thanks Bud,

As a Technician, ( as you know)

Sometimes we over think things looking for the real cause of the problem. And when we do find it we get an argument from a guy that was selling washing machines last week...

Yes the vacuum gauge will tell you so much info. I was really fortunate to learn from some top knotch guys since high school........