Hello friends.
im 19 and just got my hands on a single owner very clean N/A 300zx z32. I am still new to this engine being the vg30de and just replaced my timing belt. I’ve heard around that this is a rough job to do even for people who know what they are doing and figured I would give it a shot. Well it didn’t go as great as one would imagine and now I have a very clear metallic ticking noise coming from the front of my engine behind the cam gears sort of under my throttle linkages. After doing a bit of digging and pulling my timing covers off and looking at everything I believe I had my crank sprocket 1 tooth off. I redid my timing and set all marks and counted the teeth on the belt(the teeth all matched what I’ve found online) so I put my engine back together and ticking is still very much there. Also when spinning my engine over the bank 1 side of my engine will line up all the marks on 1 full rotation of the cam gears and the bank 2 side will still be about a 1/4 to 1/2 tooth off but if spun over again all 4 gears line up. Take in mind all teeth count still match. Can anybody help me figure this out I’ll provide and video of the sound me engine is making. Now I know these cars have hydronic lifters and can be a little bit of a pain to deal with. But i can’t tell if what I’m hearing is one of my valves kissing my piston or has been bent or my lifters are just having a ball. Any and all help is appreciated this car is my daily and I would like to figure it out as fast as possible. I can update you guys soon after I do a leak down test and compression test to at least cover the basics.

 

So I’ve done some more digging and a lot is pointing towards VTC am I looking in the right direction?

 

I'm pretty new to these cars, but there is some general mechanical wisdom I can share. When turning the engine over by hand to check timing, two rotations are required to get back to top-dead-center (TDC) of the compression stroke on the first cylinder. This is where physical timing is checked on most engines. For the vg, TDC #1 is for the first cylinder on the right. If you only do one rotation from there, it'll be wonky and not line up right. It hasn't gone through the entire cycle at that point.

For the ticking noise, it could be a big number of things. Honestly, it might be worth it to take a socket extension and put one end on different parts of the engine, then put the other end to your ear. It should exaggerate / amplify the noise that the engine is making to varying degrees based on how close you are to where it's coming from. You can probably use that trick to narrow down where it's coming from. If it's the VTC setup and not a valvetrain specific noise, it'll probably get louder the closer you get to the gear going along the valve cover.

Here's a guy on YouTube that does great work on these cars I've been learning a ton from. Name is Caden Parsons. He's mentioned a couple times that the vtc setup in the timing gears has a habit of going out as these cars get older. Generally, the spring and o-rings for the gear are changed in a 120k service to get ahead of any issues. Good luck and hope this helps!