Horrid top end ticking, broken valve spring?

Has anyone experienced either a broken valve spring or sticking valve stem seal?

Was accelerating onto on onramp and all of a sudden I get theis awful loud ticking (like a midget hitting the valve cover super fast, goes with rpm). Pulled over and towed it home.

Pulled the valve cover, cams look good, don't see any cracked lobes. Could not see the springs.
Pulled the plugs (do look like its lean, but not bad).
Stuck snake camera into plug holes, looks like something hitting #4 piston (cant tell if its real bad, just looks like a few nicks near one of the valve crowns on the piston)

Ideas here? It does start and idle, did not check to see if it ticks at idle, did not pay attention.

Thoughts on how I should do a compression test and how to tell TDC for #4?
Possible to replace valve spring without pulling the head or to check for sticky valve stem seal?

Little worried that the valve or stem may be tweaked, but can't toss any more money at the P5.

I could not see all the angles.... VTCS screw maybe bouncing around in there as another possibility?

Pulled the intake manifold off (left the lower resnoator/TB section on).

*#!&#)*^!$&$@_!)&$&$)!(@

On the VICS, cyln #3, the stinking Butterfly was sitting in the lower manifold section, no screws to be found. Anyone have part numbers or resource for these VICS screws? And should I take them all off and locktite them on? Still not sure if this is the bad ticking noise or not, but it could be...

Confirmed. VICS screw is stuck to the top of Piston #4. I'll toss some pics later of it. It must be fused into the top of the crown of the piston now, as a magnet nor coat hanger wire would free it.

F#*& Mazda and this BS. My VIN falls outside of the recall for the VICS recalls, yet it is suffering from that exact problem. Between my new CX-9 that was a lemon and now my trusty P5... I'm so utterly irate at this damn car company.... grrrrrrr....

Since the screw is not interfering with the valves, I may just run it and see what happens now. At least on the bright side, I did the VTCS removal since I needed the screws for the VICS, bwahahahahah.... *sniffle sniffle*

I tell everyone the same thing, never buy a mazda with a ford motor. Fsde is junk my 2.5 mazda 3 burns more oil than my celica with 310k miles. But it's normal for them to burn a quart every 1,000 miles

323 on the other hand was rallied for years and beat on constantly 200k miles and going strong

No kidding!

Well, good news is no CELs (well minus a P0660 now, but I can poke that when I can). It puked out the screw finally after about 15 minutes of "spirited back roads driving" trying to blow the screw out, but ate a spark plug (at least it didn't crack the head or F a valve). So three gaskets, 5 spark plugs, and one VTCS delete and it's running again. So damn pissed off right now at Mazda. I called for screw part numbers or even the recall kit numbers, two different dealers had no clue how to even find it.

tweety2300 said:

I tell everyone the same thing, never buy a mazda with a ford motor. Fsde is junk my 2.5 mazda 3 burns more oil than my celica with 310k miles. But it's normal for them to burn a quart every 1,000 miles

323 on the other hand was rallied for years and beat on constantly 200k miles and going strong

Click to expand...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazda_F_engine

(Not a Ford engine)