A few weeks ago I got the 440 running again in my Charger. I am putting off having a motor built for a few more years so I figured Id try to get away with a refresh of my motor. The motor was running well when parked 15 years ago. The cylinders looked ok so I just honed them with a flex ball and put new rings and bearings. The pistons had a few scratches in them but the machine shop who loosened them up on the rods thought they were ok. I had a few pistons that felt tight on the rod so I had them clean and re press them.

The car was an automatic before, now a 4 speed, changed the heads to Edelbrock RPM, same intake and carbs and headers.

The rockers are stock stamped steel Mopar, same ones that came out along with the pushrods. I re used the cam and lifters, putting them all in the same spot.

Cam is Mopar 284/484, its running terrible right now, blowing gray smoke, about 8 inches of vacuum, not sure what the power valve is, but it smells very rich. I tried putting about 18 degrees initial timing, but it dieseled after shut off, didn't really drive it around to see if pinging, and with the noise, don't want to rev it up to high. I tried retarding the timing and the noise was still there.

The noise follows the RPMS, almost sounds like an exhaust leak but it isn't. Not sure what I can do w/o taking off the intake.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSS5oCcsRaQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFh6mxFDMrE

Sounds alot like valve train.
Collapsed lifters or way too much pre-load.
Too slow for rotating assembly parts.

Definitely a valvetrain noise. What rockers are on it???

Sounds heavier than valvetrain to me. You say they pressed a couple of pistons off and back on. Did they measure the skirts afterwards? Pressing pistons off can distort the skirts.

"Valve train noises occur at half of crankshaft speed so even if your ear can't tell whether the noise is happening at 700 rpm (raps per minute) or only 350 rpm, your eyes can. Hook the timing light to any one cylinder and watch the flash illuminate the timing mark. Stare at it for a while and see if the flash jives with the knock. If it does, then it is more likely to be rocker arms, pushrods, lifters, camshaft, cam bearings, timing chain and gears. If the noise seems twice as fast it is probably in the crank, mains, rods, rod bearings, wristpins and pistons."

They are the stock stamped rockers, from Year one about 15 years ago. I had Hughes 1.6 roller rockers on there first but I swapped them for the stock ones last week thinking that was my noise.


No, I didn't ask them to measure the skirt prior and after.

Not going to be remedied by fiddling with timing, PVs, etc. Start taking it apart and looking. Pull the valve covers and bar it over. Look for something not right. Pull the plugs, spin it with the starter and listen. Pull the front and check cam timing, fasteners, etc. Been there. Sucks. Just have to start looking. First vid sounds like it has a miss to me along with the noise.

ETA...A mechanic's stethoscope could be very useful. I would limit the run time until I knew what it was.

Sounds like a tooth off on timing... did you degree it

If you think it's a piston noise you can pull one wire at a time when it's running and see if it goes away. that will tell you what cyl. it is coming from.

Are the rocker shaft oiling properly?

sounds like a lifter or something up top. Take a long screw driver and run it down each valve cover to pin point it. (if you don't have an engine stethoscope) FWIW you are not going to get a ton of vacuum w/ that 484 cam. moparpollack brings up a good point, you did install the rocker shafts correctly right? If they are upside down that can cause that sound.

More than likely piston slap and or piston pin seized up. J.Rob

Hmm, i think I have the rockers on correctly, are the tiny holes supposed to be facing down when installed? i beleive they have a 15 degree offset in relation to the holes for the hold down bolts?

I swapped these from my roller 1.6 from Hughes, but I thought I had the small holes facing down on those too?

The holes in the rocker shaft should face the valve springs.

Did you ever run the stock pushrods before with this cam? IMO the stock pushrods are likely too short.

I did run these exact rockers/pushrods before on this motor, same cam, only difference was the heads. I ran stock iron heads previously, now running Edelbrock RPM.

Did you check the lifter preload ?

Was it making the same noise with the rollers ?

It was making a similar noise with the 1.6 roller rockers, but it seems worse with the stock ones in.

I didnt check the preload with the stamped rockers, just torqued the bolts down to spec.

On the roller rockers, I set them initially at 1/2 turn after having what I thought was zero lash, then i adjusted them a 1/4 turn at a time, the noise didnt get better or worse, then I just swapped them out for the stockers. That is as far as I got.

I figured the stock rockers would take the variable of the adjustable roller rockers out.

Maybe the pushrods are touching the heads side loading the rockers

Keep in mind that aluminum heads expand more than iron, if there is little/no preload on the lifters the preload will disappear as the heads expand away from the lifters.

Are the Edlebrock RPMs set up to take the stock length pushrod?