i bought a 2000 ex coupe 1 owner only 60k miles, well maintained. i bought it home, changed oil over to synthetic and drove it. noticed the motor seemd a bit more noisy with the synthetic in it vs the conventional. put like 250 miles on it and noticed when i start it cold i get valve tapping and chatter, not horrible but noticeable. i switched back to conventional oil and it still does it, could it be just a fluke? does it need valve adjustment? seems to go away mostly after its warmed up. i just dnt wanna cause more damage. im in pa and its like 25-35 degrees here now

 

Valves are often noisy when cold. It shouldn't hurt anything.

You should check the adjustment though, the spec is to adjust every 30,000 miles.

 

add some lucas oil, that should stop it, you can also stop at a shop and see if your valves need adj, should only take 30 mins

 

Sounds like all the oil in the head may be draining to the oil pan. You might want to install a different or new oil filter.

 

i installed a new filter when i swapped oils. im using a purlator pure one filter that has drain back prtoection,what filter do u reccomend? also im using honda 5w30 oil

 

My 2000 Civic EX has noisy valves when cold. It has done this since I have owned it (76,000mi) now has 127,000mi. Currently runing Mobil 1 0W30 and Honda oil filter (15400-PLM-A02). Timing belt/wp, and valve adj done @ 94,000mi. (made no difference to the noisy valves when cold).