Originally Posted By: gathermewool
How are you tuned and are you able to data-log. I think your motor and tune are way more important than the oil. No oil is going to save you engine if it's tuned poorly.
What do you mean by "stage 3" anyway - Beyond Stage 2 (down-pipe and a tune) it gets very vague - typically bigger inter-cooler, intake and other small bits, like possibly a new bypass valve, boost control solenoid, etc. In other words, you can't just tune the ECM to be stage 3, nor is it just a rebuilt motor and ported heads.
Finally, the ticking could very well be an exhaust header leak. I had this on my '08 STI after the dealer messed with the turbo and replacing the gasket fixed the issue. My '97 Legacy GT had a tick that seemed to come from beneath the engine, but it wasn't loud, never got worse, and wasn't worth the effort to remove due to rust and corrosion.
By stage 3 I mean vf39 turbo, injectors, full exhaust, up oipe, intake, intercooler. Car is tuned for the mods. The turbo and injectors were put in about a month ago with new exhaust gaskets and such. No issues until now it's top end valve train ticking/clattering. No rod knock. It's a noise that hasn't been there before. And just recently developed. Motor has 8k on it since it was rebuilt. The noise comes from the engine. I can't hear it with the windows uo, Windows down it bounces off objects on each side of the car. It's not a bad sound, it's just more noisy than it ever has been. It's just been absolutely silent until now