My 360 sounds like a sewing machine

MopaR&D said

IMO that oil is a bit too thin, I've also personally not had good results with Castrol oil but I don't think that's your issue.

You mentioned there might be too much oil in it, if it's a quart over you'll definitely have noisy lifters from the crank whipping air into the oil.

Lastly I don't know if it applies to the LA roller cam engines but I know on Magnums the spec for lifter preload is in the .080-.095" range, much more than a typical flat-tappet or aftermarket roller cam and lifters. They run fine with less but I've heard they do make valvetrain noise like a solid cam when set up that way. I put my 5.9 Magnum together with around .085" preload on the factory lifters and there is no valvetrain noise at all.

Click to expand...

As above... IIRC, the lifter preload on rollers is typically more than for flat tappet hydraulics. That .015" on the exhaust valves works out to .010" on the pushrod side, so that is not a big difference, IMHO.

Lifters sounds pumped up if they feel solid. BUT you have to rotate the engine around a few times to test each lifter when it is a zero lift to make this a valid test. A lifter leaking down but up on the cam will go solid due to the piston fully being depressed in the lifter body.

I like the flow of lighter oils and raced on Castrol for a long time, but the thinner weights to tend to make more hydraulic lifter noises. (I personally will live with a little noise to have more oil flow. But different things bother different folks....)