I experienced more noise with Mobil 1, switched back to dino with Lucas oil additive.

 

sounds like you have a few lifters bleeding down on ya. i would take it to an indy and see what they have to say about it!

 

the absolute best thing you can do for valve noise, and also 5th gear whine is.......ear plugs!
(Redline 20w-60, and Redline Syn. w/shockproof for the tranny help also)

 

I have used M1 since 25,000 miles on 2000 FXST. Now have 73,000 on bike. No problems.

 

The recommended service life of the lifters is 25000 mi. according to the manual. The lifters take alot of abuse in these motors. If you have to switch to a heavier oil to get rid of the noise you are probably masking some other issue. The best way to get rid of lifter noise is to get adjustable pushrods becase you can fine tune the valve train. I'v heard of guys shimming the rockers to lessen the sided to side play. Sometimes the rocker plate can be moved a bit also. These push rod motors are pretty noisy anyway sometimes the ticking you hear isn't in the valve train, check your exhaust flange bolts. Mine started ticking awhile back and it ended up going away when I adjusted the primary chain slack.

 

Without me knowing,the dealer only replaced 2 in mine.
I would have paid for the other two.

Might be a warranty thing?

 

ok, i'm taking back to the dealer today. I will let everyone know what they come up with.
i'm not that comfortable with them working on it but it is under warrenty. the last time they only replaced one lifter was supposed to replace all. was told they only could replace any that were bad. when i picked up the bike still had the noise. this noise is not normal lifter or rocker noise. it sounds like a hammer pecking on something.like i said it goes away after running a mile or two.i know what the engine should sound like and this is not normal. maybe it is not caused by the syn oil, could be like has been posted just worn out lifters, i would think you would get more miles out of lifters than that but maybe not.

 

What you are describing is a classic lifter problem. The seals in them leak when the get worn out or fail, the oil bleeds off when it sits. Then when you start it up you will have a loud tick until the oil pressure builds back up in the lifter. It's pretty common to replace lifters at 30k or so, when the cam chain tensioners are replaced, just good insurance.