Thread: KA24DE woes

I hope at least a few of you on here have had some experience tinkering with these motors. Currently, the upper timing chain is contacting the valve cover. You can see where it is hitting on the underside of the valve cover. The chain guides that everyone says to remove are gone and I just got done replacing the upper chain tensioner. The chain is still hitting the cover; its a nasty noise. At this point, I've come to the conclusion that the problem is one of two things:

1) Low oil pressure

2) Chain is stretched

The next course of action is going to be dropping the lower oil pan this weekend. The pan looks a little dented so I am going to drop it and try and hammer it straight. When I put new oil in it, I am going to try filling it with 15w-40 oil (been running generic 10w-30 since I purchased a year and a half ago). If this doesn't remedy the problem, I fear I may be out of options as I do not have the time or equipment necessary to pull the engine.

So I guess I'm basically asking if anyone has any experience or ideas for a simple fix that I have overlooked to this point. The car is an Altima by the way. Thanks for reading.

Where did you get the tensioner from. Has the head or block been resurfaced. The upper guide isn't needed, but you can still use it. If you have that much slack on the chain you need to watch for it skipping teeth. I got a ka for sale but its rwd with work done

Its an OEM tensioner. I have no idea if the head has ever been resurfaced. I am going to assume it hasn't tho. Even if it was, I've driven this car every day for the last year and a half and never had this problem until last week so I don't think thats the root cause of the issue.

Check the length of the chain. Could be the only thing really. I just hope it didn't skip any teeth cause i've had that happen before and it isn't nice

Na, hasn't skipped it still runs fine, just makes that nasty noise.

your 100% sure that noise is coming from the chain? i had a single cam one time that was making a nasty noise coming from that area turned out to be the lifters.

Yea I'm just about positive. I have marks underneath the valve cover where the chain is hitting very similar to the second pic in the 1st post of this thread.

KA24: Timing Chain Hitting Valve Cover.....opinions wanted - Nissan 240SX Forums

Well, the pan has been hammered straight and reinstalled with 10w40 oil and a new filter. The cold start sounded good, usually there is a rattle for the first second on a cold start that was non existent this time. I was hoping it was fixed but after going around the block and getting the engine up to operating temperature, the noise returned at idle and low rpm. At this point, I'm thinking I have some sort of oil pressure issue.

if you can measure the length of the chain ill be more then happy to measure the length on mine to help you out. i just replaced all my timing components on mine and the engine is sitting on a engine stand in my garage. if you think its the oil pressure a new oil pump(front cover) from nissan runs for a bit over $300.

Thats really nice of you man, I appreciate it. I probably won't have time to get at the thing again. The weather is supposed to be absolute garbage for a while and school will be picking up shortly. If I happen to get at it at some point, I'll let you know. And thanks again man.