any time there is no oil pressure the phasers should be locked.

 

correct. So the situation (I dont want to call it an "issue" because I don't know if it is, haha) that I had, does that mean the phaser was unlocked when it should have been? or did that have nothing to do with the phaser being un/locked, but rather is that a separate and nomral/unnormal occurrence?

i guess I am wondering if anybody knows what I am talking about and is able to say, "yes, that is normal" or "no that is not normal" lol.

 

Sorry for not responding sooner - between the holidays and other projects, my off time has been completely filled.

Going back to your other post for a moment, when you were checking the front bank with the valve cover off, what were you looking for? The quickest, easiest test is to bring each cylinder up to TDC compression stroke and then check the position of the cam lobes - they should be at or close to 180* pointed away from the valves (straight up).

If that checks out, are you sure you installed the correct phasers on each cam? They are typically labeled/stamped as being exhaust or intake but that’s not true 100% of the time.

 

yea thats all good. Ive gotten it back together now. I warrantied that cam phaser from GM and they gave me a warrantied chain too. dont these a bunch of times so I know those are right and timing is right. I also have the cam tools to make sure they are in time with each other. cant get it wrong. Seems to be running ok upon start up. this was actually just yesterday haha. but then after idling a while it started making a bunch of what seems to be lifter noise. let it idle a while longer to see if it would clear up or get 'un-stuck'. at one point it did sound better. got in the car to give it some gas, and noise came right back. then worse than that, started misfiring bad on cylinder #3. so gotta tear into that now. im gonna swap the plugs and coil packs, but I wonder if its the bad lifter causing the issue. always something, ughhh

 

Anybody ever try, or know if its possible, to get to those lifters and replace them without removing the camshafts again?? lolol