How hard is it to change the lifter, I am suspecting a bad one

Hey guys, my car makes a ticking noise sound at idle. It increases as I hit certain RPMs. I am suspecting a bad lifter or valves. Is this a common problem, also how hard and expensive it is to change that?

Could you be a little more specific on where the sound is coming from.

Our cars have hydraulic lifters so they are self-adjusting...

I havent run the car long enough to give you more details, but the ticking noise is definitely coming back from the top of the motor, right where the valves are. Its like right near the plugs

i have that same problem,
my mechanic said that i need to change the lifters

how much did he charge u

A mild valve ticking noise is fairly common on G20's when they've aged. Mine had it when I first bought it. When I was going to do my second oil change, I noticed that the oil was coming out pretty dark even though it was only 2500 miles. To clean things up, I did three oil changes driving 30 minutes between each, sprayed carb cleaner into the TB, and ran some high octane fuel and added Chevron fuel cleaner. It really cleaned up the engine because now I can't hear the ticking! The oil looks just like it came out right out of the bottle too. Just make sure the regular maintainance is up to snuff before you do anything you may not have to.

There's a way to do the ATF trick on piston engines. ATF will give the lifters and valves a good cleaning. I haven't figured how to do it yet but I'll let you know when I do.

Hey what's up mIke, i cleaned my oil right before i came back. It's been 300 miles since the oil change. The oil is already looking kinda dark. Kind of like 2000 miles on my RX-7. I am going to try to use those engine flush to clean out the engine more and do 1 or 2 more oil change on Wednesday, but I am going to drive like this for the enxt 2 days. As for teh tick, I think it is more seriously. I think i really need to take the valve cover off and have something looked at. Also I have to check the belts since my valve/belt area makes a high pitch squeek when i am on the gas (not at idle). Oh btw, how do you know if the timing chain is going bad/