How to fix loud M30 valves?!

[Kalevera]

Hi Guys.

I've had some valve ticking in my M30 since I bought the car. I never thought it was normal, and Brett Anderson suggested that I adjust the valves. I've now pulled the valve cover three times, but haven't yet solved the problem:

1) First time, I didn't have a feeler gauge. I was just checking the banjo bolts and discovered the frontmost one sitting in the valley below the sprayer bar. Damn. I loctited it back in. The lobes looked fine with minimal, if any, scoring. The clicking persisted after driving ~ 500 miles.

2) Second time around I adjusted the valves to .012 (exhaust and intake). Like a good newbie, I did much more work than I needed to by manually rotating the engine *the wrong way*. It was also difficult to get the eccentrics exactly on .012. They seem to have been previously set to .011. So, I decided to replace the eccentrics.

3) Yesterday, I replaced the eccentrics, bushings, and bolts. Now they're much easier to set. As the motor was warm, I set the intake to .012 and the exhaust to .013. This time I used the remote start to make it all go much faster. Put everything back together and now it has VERY much less tick when warming up, but at operating temperatures, it sounds like it wants to throw a rod

My question is: do I set them lower -- something like .010 intake / .012 exhaust, as Robin does? Is there any danger in keeping them with a higher set time, beyond the obvious long term wear on the cam and rocker arms? On the KMS web site (http://www.koalamotorsport.com), Brett suggests that one use ~ .014 on a COLD engine.

I'm thinking that the sound is due to poorly seating valves or bad valve guides. Prior to messing with it, only cyl #2 intake was loud -- now cyl #5 is also loud.

best, whit