All I can tell you is that you would have to have heard a few bad lifters in diffrent applications to be able to pick the sound out... It can be a light tick, it can be a thud of sorts.. Its hard to explain on the forum... and describing the sound is another story...

When you manage to get Video, post it and we'll see what we can hear...

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I can post a video my tick later, and he can tell us if its the same sound

You have a tick too? Hmmm

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Its a sharp tick, not a thud. Kinda like tapping....and somehow...the name roller TAPpets comes to mind. :roll: Thats why I thought it is a lifter. AS FAR AS how many are acting up...it sounds like one...POSSIBLY two...but no where near positive. I will take a good video if I can.

This morning was opportune because it was about 5 degrees when i started the engine after not running it for 13 hours. It barely started and was running so rough the whole car was vibrating/shaking. It seemed like I had never heard the tick that loud. But that was probably just the sound resonating off of the cement/walls.

yup :roll:
Like johns, mine also goes away once its worm. I can still here it just a very little when worm though, very hard to here it.

But like today, Stone cold, 25*F you can here it when i start it up.
You cant here it right away but like 10-20seconds after you start you start to here it.

Rockers are loose. Mine were loose as crap, if the cam was in just the right position, i could rotate the rocker, and there was literally no valvetrain noise, upon startup or any other time. Easiest thing is pull oil cap and try wiggling the two nearest rockers from there. Or pull the front valve cover. It could be as easy as pulling some valve covers and hitting them with some blue loctite and a torque wrench. I wouldn't be surprised if that took care of the problem. Because for a lifter to bleed down that much, and take that long to pump up... is a rare occasion, but for enough of them to do that, that it causes hard starting, that's about impossible.

haha, i never said thats what caused the hard starting or vibrations.

it was 5 degrees! engines dont run that well when its that cold out...especially ones with a bunch of miles on them and it started slow because my battery needs a warmer on it. but once it was started it was all good, it just shook for about 30 seconds and then it was all good.

i thinki may also be expiriencing these lifter tick, or something related to it. mine also goes away after the car warms up

Don do you have a tick? I mean this only seems to happen when it gets really cold, and you're in florida so maybe you do and don't know.

Maybe this is just a normal common wear characteristic of the LN3 and SOME L27s?

Ok, since the tapping noise goes away after a few minutes of run time, I would cross bad lifters off the list. If a lifter was really done, it would tap most to all of the time.

Heres the short list of things that go wrong on a lifter: 1.) Sludge buildup inside the lifter body/plugged orifice keeping oil from filling up the lifter. 2.) Busted spring inside lifter body. 3.) Lifter bore oversize/worn. 4.) contact surface with cam damaged/wrong cam and lifter types.

1 and 3 are pretty common in high milage motors. #2 is often assembly screwup or over-reving the motor..not enough lash on the valves, way too much lash on the valves, bent push-rod, not enough clearance in the valve springs. #4 is just plain stupid s*&% (Like using a flat tappet lifter on a roller cam or vise-versa.)

So, in sum, you don't really have a problem with the lifters themselves (or at least it's unlikely you have a problem with the lifters.) The symptoms are more like a weak oiling system or excessive wear that's keeping the oil pressure from comming up fast.

If you want to hear for yourself what a bad lifter sounds like, warm the motor up, take off a valve cover, then with the motor running, loosen one of the rockers till it rattles then tighten it back up again. This gets a little messy, but it's the old school way of setting the lash on solid lifter valve train. (NOTE: This is just for the purposes of demonstrating the sound of a bad lifter, this is NOT the correct procedure for setting the lash on a HYDRAULIC lifter.)