Not much to say about oil variants, but + one for Arduino fan!

 

My tick goes away after an oil change, at least for a while. Looks like the fresh oil plus engine flush (with Liqui Moly) makes the engine happy, but it doesn't like when oil gets older (then it ticks more often). Bringing rpm above 1500 makes the ticking go away, but comes back at idle rpm. My oil pressure is OK, I have more than 10psi at idle (I am using an industrial pressure sensor, connected to Torque via Bluetooth and an Arduino - custom ATMega328p board to be precise). An oil temp sensor is also very useful, since the oil pressure varies greatly with the oil temperature and the coolant temperature gauge is just a good guess for the oil temp.

[I tried Rotella 15W40 too, but it didn't made a difference other than damping the noise a bit. I am using GTX Castrol High Mileage 10W40 now.]

 

Check / tighten exhaust manifold to down pipe bolts.

Any bolt honestly

 

I'm leaning towards that as the culprit. I ordered new gaskets, studs and nuts. They're pretty cheap and I figure "What could be more satisfying than taking apart a 20 year old exhaust system?"

TBH, I may or may not actually use them; depends on what I find when I get down there. But the weather is kinda sucky for wrenching outdoors right now, so surfing, shopping, and planning are where I'm at.

Also, ordered parts for Arduino/LCD circuit to monitor coolant temp and oil pressure.

 

2004 92,000 miles

i have an aggressive knock

i run 15W40 rotella

just ran her over 1,000 miles in 7 days with no complaints.