This morning my car started making a ticking noise. I drove my car cold because I was running late (-20F here in Chicago this morning - I know, bad idea).

After about 10 min my car started making the noise. Gets worse the higher you rev. audible at idle. gets worse the more rpms (but exhaust makes it hard to hear).

I just replaced the TCT with a Billman one a couple weeks ago so it's not that.

I'm thinking I need a valve adjustment but don't know where to go in the Western suburb area. Any help would be much appreciated.

 

Valve train noise is very very common in cold weather like this. But...
10w30 can be stable down to -20 generally, however that highly depends on the motor, most manufacturers don't recommend running 10w30 oil much below -10F.
If you are going to run in this cold switch to 5w30, or you are just going to put undue wear on internals on cold starts.

 

It's not a bad idea to run the car cold, it doesn't need to warm up, Just keep the rpms down until it's fully warmed up. If it started making the noise after 10 mins, I don't think it's due to the cold, the car would have been fully warmed up to operating temps by then. It is still possible the TCT is bad, just because it's new, doesn't mean its flawless. Still sounds like a TCT issue to me, especially with a warmed up car.

 

I have this problem too. But the ticking only happens when it's cold out. When it's warm no noise. It comes from the driver side when I had the hood open. Suggestions ?