Well, the updated HVA's are "supposed" to be the fix making replacing the expensive (to BMW) cylinder heads on these cars not necessary. There may be a few cars out there that still tick after the exhaust HVA's are replaced, I've not seen any so far and have probably done 40 sets of them since we quit replacing heads and started replacing HVA's instead.
I will say again though, the noise is more of a nuisance than anything. It's not going to cause any permanent or long term damage. It's just a matter of getting the HVA's bled out, which normally happens almost immediately on start up unless it's really cold.
The orifices in these HVA's for oil to flow through are very very small. On a cold start the engine oil is cold and thick which makes it take longer to get that thick oil into those tiny orifices in the HVA's. If anybody has ever takin one of these HVA's out and tried to compress them to push the oil out you will understand. Normally it takes a putting it in a bench vice and squeezing the holy crap out of it to get them to compress the oil out.
On a side note, you guys oughta hear these engines the first time you fire them up after replacing the HVA's. They tick so back you'd think it was coming apart!!
