Tap dancing zx2

My dad has a 99 zx2, and I have a question. his car has had a tick to it now for quite some time. It sounds just like valve tap. It's a constant noise. it does not come and go. So my question is, how common is this? If it's not, is it hard to fix? The car doesn't suffer from any loss of performance because of it.

Oil changes are done faithfully and always have been since he is the original owner of the car.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thanks

I have no idea if this is your problem but ignoring unusual engine sounds can't be good.
A quick google search found this:

The plastic intake manifold on early versions of the 1.8 and 2.0 has a major fault due to poor quality materials. The manifold has swirl-plates mounted on a square shaft at the aperture where it mounts to the cylinder head. Early 4 cylinder Duratec engines can be ruined when the swirl-plates break off and enter a cylinder. Most cases are of single swirlplates but also the shaft can wear and break. Early signs of this fault are evidenced by a ticking noise emanating from the front of the engine. This can occur as early as 25K miles, with failure typically occurring after about 90K miles.


More info Here:
Inlet Manifold Fault - Mk3 Duratec - www.FordWiki.co.uk

Thanks for the info. Seems like it COULD be an easy fix. One question though.......this engine I thought was vtec. I could be wrong, and I'll double check. Unless they're similar in design.......

I could be, not sure like I stated above. I was making a point of running it with unusual sounds. I could be many things up to a rod knock, piston slap, wrist pin or re-adjusting the valve lash.
I just did another google search for "zetec ticking" (vtec??) and found the oil and/or filter types may be the culprit.......motorcraft was recommended.
Some filters cause a dry start because they lack a drain back valve but the ticking should go away after a short time. Dry starts will premature wear the engine possibly causing the constant tick you have now.