I just bought a 1992 Miata. I just got it running and it is making this constant tick tick tick noise. I think its the cams or the lifters. Does anyone have any advice or has had this happen to them? I used some Sea Foam that I read about on a thread that had something to do with a similar noise. It helped a bit, but the ticking is still there. I have a long weekend coming up and I was planning on cleaning the lifters. I have never done this and it makes me kind of nervous. Any advice you could give would be helpful. Thank you

 

There are several different procedures for cleaning lifters, but before doing any of those I would experiment with different weight oils.

 

Like olderguy said, try some different weight oils, do you know whats in it now? The lifter tick is pretty common, and even after cleaning, it'll usually come back shortly after. More often than not different oil weight will work to quite it down a good bit.

 

pulling them apart and decompressing lifters, and manually cleaning them, is the best way

 

I'm not sure what wt oil is in there now. I got the car abandoned vehicle lot. Does anyone have a suggestion of what wt I should run

 

And could it be my my valve trimming is off?

 

Valve timing will not make it tick. Try some 5w40.

 

I'm sure it's about time for a change anyway! I use 0w-40 M1 with pretty good results, I think its a little different for everyone.

 

5w-30 like whats intended...but changing oil weights wont fix compressed lifters.

 

This is true.