Picked up a 2006 HSE Range Rover 4.4L a while back that had been sitting for about 2 years with a blown head gasket. This wasn’t my first time doing head gaskets so I wasn’t too worried going into it, but this one was no joke. I’ve finished replacing the head gaskets and got everything buttoned up. The car does fine with easy acceleration and gets up to speed but if I somewhat put my foot in the pedal, I hear what sounds like valves rattling and it burns ALOT of oil. I had a machine shop resurface the heads and put in new valve stem seals when I replaced the head gas jets. The car runs too good for it to be timing related. I’m at a loss. Any ideas? Only thing I can think of is it has something to do with the variable valve timing but what?

 

Rattling seems like it would be timing chain related. Heavy oil burn could be stuck rings from sitting, kinda hard to say. Is there any oil in the throttle body?

 

It did smoke when I first ran it but I’ve driven it around and most of that has cleared up. I’m left with this heavy smoke and rattle/chatter. There was oil in the throttle body when I tore it down but haven’t checked since all of this started. I guess the timing chain is a possibility. The tensioners and guides looked fine though.

 

Use a mechanics stethoscope to see if you can isolate the location of the noise

 

It only does it under a load going down the road.