But what if it isn't? Your engine will still be tapping, so you won't know if it was the tappets,

All i'm saying is it might be a better idea to get a hyrdaulic set in there, if the tapping goes away then you know it was the offending component(s), then you can go ahead and swap to solid lifters, or even get your new set welded up/plugged.

Thats fair enough, are they 35mm or 31mm?

What would be better for a turbo one of these engines

Solid or hydraulic lifters.

Just want to see if these could benefit me and would you do both inlet and exhaust or just one as its hella expensive for both so just wondering

You'll be using standard cams right pete?

Yep standard cams with vernier pulleys

sooooo

after a lengthy conversation with piper today

they explained the process of fitting the solid lifter kit, which sounds pretty straight forward, just time consuming and requires the car to be out of action for a short while which i cant do at this time of year, so i have decided to leave the solid lifters for now until i have more time (ie: when the e30 is back on the road)

i noticed euro list the followers (dont know how i missed this previously) so i shall get a full set ordered once i have been paid on tuesday!

So after much talk with euro car parts, we eventually established they could get me a full set of tappets on special order from germany, so 3 weeks later i have them and have just got to fitting them tonight

And

And

And

And

The tapping has finally gone!!!!

Winning.

Told you just because you cleaned them and appears well doesn't mean they are lol.

Yes yes mr know it all!

Glad you got to the bottom of it

How much were they though?!

How much were they though?!

Too much...

About £250 for the lot

Surely it was only one or two tappets?

It can be tedious trying to find one but i've used an ear to a screwdriver (acoustic relay method) to find a knocking tappet and replaced the correct one on the second attempt. It's tedious with OHC/DOHC admittedly, but the manifolds tell you which side it's on and DOHC effectively have two seperate cam covers so it's not difficult to get close - 2-3 tappets are cheaper than 16.

Surely it was only one or two tappets?

It can be tedious trying to find one but i've used an ear to a screwdriver (acoustic relay method) to find a knocking tappet and replaced the correct one on the second attempt. It's tedious with OHC/DOHC admittedly, but the manifolds tell you which side it's on and DOHC effectively have two seperate cam covers so it's not difficult to get close - 2-3 tappets are cheaper than 16.

Well its done now and ime happy :)