"Ticking"...What Exactly Is This?

My 93 5.7L Caprice Classic has a faint "ticking" sound that I have heard about so much on other cars. The car has 204800 kms on the origanal engine and this sound is very faint after startup and goes away quite quickly. I dont have many gauges on this car, so I cant really tell what is going on with oil pressure and stuff, and it seems to still have about 99% of its power. Is this a serious problem? how long will I be able to keep her running like this? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!:)

Could you please be a little more specific? Where is the ticking coming from? What does the ticking effect? When does the ticking come on?

you might be talking about the pinging that comes from your timing being off...but this usually happens on startup and during acceleration and braking, not just on startup.

Are the lifters hydraulic/

If so then it is just a little bit of play in the valve train which is taken up when the lifters get oil pressure:smoka:

Thanks for all the quick replys. I am 100% sure that the sound is coming from the engine itself and it may have something to do with the lifters or the valves [I don't think it has hydrolic lifters], it goes away after only a min or so. Im wondering if it may be that im getting poor oil pressure from a weak oil pump, but im not going to speculate due to my lack of knowledge on this type of engine. [Last engine i worked on was a 1.6L SOHC 4cyl]. Any thing anyone can tell me would be appreciated, I dont mind putting a bit of money into the engine, cause I love the car, and the HP, and I plan on keeping it for a few yrs.

Thanks Again

ahhh the clasic 350 lifter tick its common only thing you can do is try to ajust the rocker arms. you can start worying when you get the blue smoke out of the exaust only during startup. thats due to the valve seals leaking very common. i wouldent mess with it

btw it is equiped with hydrolic lifters