Alittle back story: This tick started about 3-4 months ago. I noticed at first only on the highway echoing off the side walls but it was very faint and went away. Now its become more familiar and more often, but still happens intermittently.

In the vid there is slight throttle being given to the car. When no throttle is given it either disappears or happens less intermittently(at about 30 secs into the vid the throttle is let off for alittle and you can see how it goes away). When given a lot of throttle in idle it gets drowned out by the engine noise. Sometimes it doesnt happen at all. Sometimes its loud like the vid. When driving, its always intermittent and no rhyme or reason. Today I started the car in the morning and no tick (sometimes it will do it on cold start sometimes not).

anyway. there it is, and its driving me nuts. ive changed the oil every 7500 miles or so with no oil consumption whatsoever inbetween changes. the car has 47K original miles. Mobil1 10w-30 synthetic with Mobil1 filter always used.

 

not a good noise.

the 1st thing that I hear is the tink tink.. but then when you pan out I hear the exhaust notes and the tink-tink and hear a "low exhaust" (low volume cylinder) note that times EXACTLY with the tink. this makes me think of these possibilities:

Oil issue. its to low and the valves are not actuating correctly.
Oil issue. its to thin or thick and the vales are not actuating correctly.

Cam issue. intake is having issues creating one low volume cylinder becasue of a cam issue.. but I would expect more 'loping; noises..
exhaust vale issue. bad seal, bad actuation, leading to loss of compression leading to a low volume cylinder.

Valve issues .. bent valve.
Valve issues .. sticky valve after seafoaming .. or needing cleaning.

and lastly bad injector on one cylinder creating a low volume condition in one cylinder.

i would : (from cheap to not cheap)
--borrow a compression tool and test each cylinder. look for a cylinder a cylinder with less than 100psi,
--borrow a cylinder scope and look ta the valves
--hard reset the ECU, fuel map and do a idle air relearn.
--change the oil and filter. go to 5-30 synthetic if you not on it already. (do not add any oil thickeners or treatments)
--test each injector.. but only of you know wtf your doing injury can result from being dumb
--take apart the heads

 

ive had no oil issues, no consumption or anything with checks inbetween changes. ive ran 3 fuel system cleaners (techron) through the gas tank (1 on a seperate occasion and the other 2 consecutively). with no changes. I want it to be an injector or a rattle, dont know why it would be the cams/valves if the oil has been great from the start, and its had premium gas since day 1.

as much as i hate to admit it, from my experience it sounds like a valve or lifter from my honda days. just wondering if anyone else has ran into the same sound and had input.

thank you!

 

if you are convinced on the oil not being a issue and are going to discount the cam, then i'd focus on the more probable issues:

Bad injector, bad wire harness to the injector.
Bad valve.

both require more work, but a compression test would almost eliminate the vales.

then go after the injectors... but if your hunch is the in injector, you could skip the compression test and just test the injectors. I'd take that to the shop though, testing injector pulses really does need a machine to do it accurately. but that's my internet 2c advice.

 

first vid was yesterday when i got home from work. this vid is after work in the garage just after warmup. ill update to see if the problem arises after the drive.



UPDATE: got home, ticking came back but not as loud. i actually have to listen for it today. out of curiousity i pulled the spark plugs from the driver side (where i believe the noise to be coming from) and found cylinder 6 (furthest back on driver side) had very small amount of burnt oil/fuel on the lower threads but nothing really significant or out of the ordinary. the other two where really clean with no burnt residue whatsoever, almost want to say brand new. that is the only thing i found odd. retorqued all the plugs good and tick still there. faint, but still there.

p.s. i changed my plugs less than 6 months ago.

*wanted to add, ive never seafoamed the car either. tempted to do it next oil change. i also changed the oil today (after the video) at home to 5w-30 synthetic. i will update in a few weeks to see if anything changed.

 

hmmm that makes me think sticky\cold valve. now it sounds just right.

 

max, you my friend are a genius. i took your advice and started researching about stuck valves and found this:



guess what. the paper is flapping on my exhaust. did it on 2 other cars and sure enough it does not flap. taking it to infiniti soon. thankfully i got an extended warranty when i got the car from carmax. ill update this thread as time goes on and ill leave this vid here. i love little tricks like this!


now whats weird is that i didnt have really bad gas mileage for this car (15-19mpg) and my idle did backfire from time to time but i thought it was normal cause it was very small backfires. i felt no loss in power either. my other g35 back years ago did it as well when idling for long periods. what could have caused this at such low mileage??



heres more education about valves for everybody. after reading im going to have to blame it on my mrev/spacer maybe leaning me out and making high valve temps since my oil has always been fine, still weird considering there are tons of members riding around with boltons and no tune. great read:

http://www.avweb.com/news/maint/182894-1.html

 

Been reading more on this tick. Could be a fuel damper as well, theyre known to make the same sound. Theyre about $60. Might try that too.

Funny if you type "G35 Ticking" a bunch of people with similar problems and some solved.

The flappy paper in the back still stands though

 

Good to hear you solved it for your ride.. *personally* I am not a fan of trying solvents so I would continue with your plan to use the warranty for a fix.

As to the Plenum.. I DEEPLY suspect since you are not using a ton of oil it was slow buildup. I do not think the plenum would change anything in terms of oil on the backs of the valves. now would be a good time for a oil catch can (after the diagnosis and fix).

Fuel damper also fits the bill ... sorta ... The engine sounds as heard on the video is very regular .. a fuel damper to me would affect a bank and or all the cylinders not just one. but I suppose in a hypothetical one bad injector could be causing issues to the damper.

the thing to remember from my 2c's of internet advice is the paper test is showing you you have a low volume cylinder. so there are a few possibilities to that :
-Not enough air in the cylinder, incomplete burn and not much outgassing to the exhaust (intake valve)
-Not enough fuel in the cylinder, incomplete or no burn and no outgassing to the exhaust (injector)
-valve not sealing resulting in no compression, resulting in no outgassing to the exhaust (exhaust valve)
-rings are gone on one cylinder leading to very poor but some compression, leading the very low outgassing to the exhaust

the fact we hear the ticking in tandem with the dead exhaust sound tells us its not rings, and is one of the top 3.
the fact that when it warms up the issue lessens makes me think #1 (intake valve) and #3 (exhaust valve).. but the possibility exists for #2 (injector)

I do think the shop is your best plan, have then do a compression check, and from there there they will test the injectors and then the ability to actuate the valves. if you have a warranty *most* of that will be covered.

if you have actual recipes for oil changes. bring to to the shop manager to keep them from going all "you did not maintain it" excuses. though the infinity dealerships I have delt with have been rocking it and have been super friendly and accommodating to me.

now, I don't want to be doom and gloom... *BUT* there is a possibility with oil burning and or a very serious gum deposit on a valve you may have burnt valve. if that is the case the shop will want to replace the heads. if there going to replace the heads there going to want to plane the top of the block... and if they see something the do not like in the cylinder walls or tops of the pistons.. they may want to replace the block. then you may have issues with the warranty.

 

one thing though, the ticking is independent of warm or cold. it happens very randomly and actually i notice it more when the engine is warm and has been driven for a while.

its gotten better after the 5w-30 but i cant really say since its random. the noise is still there though if i hear it. hasnt gone loud again like the first vid. In the first video by the way the oil had 3600miles on it.

I already have an oil catch. I actually put it on i think about 2 months ago to see if it would help any over time.

 

Ok, that makes me then lean towards a possible bad injector. I have -0- idea of the valves in the infinity heads can "rotate" so my internet 2c now goes 50% bad valve 50% bad injector.

Since testing he injector is a no go for most home mechanics. I would opt for a dealer visit or a really good reputable foreign car shop that spec's in Japanese rigs. While there at it they can then do the compression test if all the injectors and injector wire harnesses pass muster.

 

i have a 03 with 141 miles and it just started doing the same thing I changed the injectors did a oil change and installed a catch can and the noise went away. but now the car runs 100% again with no issues at all

 

how much did the injectors run you?

still havent taken it in to inifiniti (want to install some HFCs and rid my CEL before so they dont automatically blame it on that). i grabbed a stethoscope while it was ticking and its definitely not coming from either sides of the valve cover. its driving me nuts still lol. i managed to stick the stetho on the front two injectors and i didnt hear anything out of the ordinary, but it could be one of the others.

 

I got all new injectors for around 750 off of vivid racing they work great, you can get refurbished ones for much cheaper tho most likely

 

Rramos3, any update on your sound? I'm extremely curious about what this is and how to fix it.