I have lots of family in Whire County. Way down south buy Indiana kentucky border. Love the people from southern illinois. I'm from the San Francisco Bay area and just about everyone here sucks!
What timing set did you use for your solid roller cam? The stock timing doesn’t fit the three bolt holes to cam is wider. Do you by chance have a part number? Thanks
I've been running solid rollers on the street for the last 25 years. I check mine before I plan on racing it or every 3 months if I don't have a race. I found it helpful to record the date and what valve(s) that I needed to adjust. If I have to adjust the same valve twice in a row I pull and inspect the rocker, pushrod and lifter. This helped me catch a lifter that was going away before it did any damage. Last year I checked it a few days before a race and the lash was had suddenly grown by 0.010". Now I have pressure fed bushed lifters and shaft rockers so I was 95% sure the problem was a rocker. I pulled the pair on that cylinder and the shaft was wearing. I put the spare pair of rockers on and went racing. After the race I pulled all the rockers and sent them in to be rebuilt. The spring pressure on my engine is 260 on the seat and 700 open so I pay close attention to the lash.
I finally got my solid roller cam on the road. Built it 16 years ago. I ran the motor here and there in that time, and dynoed it originally. I was going to check the lash very soon, but was forced to earlier because the lifters and rockers were louder then when I left for a small cruise one day. I lost the cam card. I checked one whole cylinder bank. Many were 20, 21, 25, 31, some were 39 thou, and one was 0.111"! Sob! I pulled the intake and 1 cylinder head to pull the solid lifters out to inspect. They all looked perfect. The cam lobe that had the bad extreme lash has slight scratching on both ramps of the lobe. If I new what cam was installed, I could just buy new valve springs for it, and then button it up again. I feel as though the lobe is fine and the lifter would tolerate the little bit of marring. But since I don't know what cam, I'm thinking of pulling the engine, putting in a new hrc, and new springs to match.... Especially since the main seals leak oil already. I'm stuck between a piston and a cylinder head 😕😕😕😕 What to do??
Good vid! I often find myself cursing the fact that I have a solid roller. But after popping a valve cover and getting intimate with the mill, there's always a sense of satisfaction!
Dude you are the best I have a 400 sbc built .60 over with everything done to it ended up being a 386 ci and I have the stud gridle on mine and was like how the hell am I suppose to due this and seen this you and the man 100% love this channel
Thank you for this video. I’m changing my dads car a 383 to solid roller and I have novice experience when it comes to this. No idea how to adjust valves etc This helped immensely
Thank you for showing this process, very good video. I have had to do this on one one of my engines. I purchased a 78 Camaro, and when I started it, it caused white steam in the rear pipes. But I heard something on one side of my valve covers. I pulled it off, two push rods were extremely loose. I knew I would have to do the entire engine, and many had to be set.
🟥 Great vid. I agree with your procedure EXCEPT the direction you use your feeler gauge. I've been building small blocks since the 60s,and I was taught by the best. We move our feeler gauge left to right instead of in and out. This way you're not feeling roller drag while the tip is rolling. Takes out all the guess work about accuracy. Every engine builder does things differently. If your method works for you, that's great. We build engines for 1/8, 1/4 mile, and roundy rounds. And the roundy rounds are the most demanding on the engine. Also, not sure if I saw you recheck your lash after final tightening on the girdle. Keep up the good work.
I really love the video man keep up the good work for somebody that don't know how to just files this is a really good video so keep up the good work man
I work on an import brand at a dealership and re-torquing the head cold as aluminum on cast iron block, just one at a time. But overhead cam with cam followers. It was then it set lash. I always used SnapOn "Go, No-Go" gages and went 0.002" tighter the specs on decal. Different deal completely, but most did not know you can purchase a feel blade as a replacement for the set. So step ground added cost but quick, accurate and took the "Feel" part out! So your 0.020" would have a blade with 0.019-0.021. The step would stop at 0.020. Engine the video and that vehicle flys. Most are not old enough to remember when you could drive a stock 69 Chevelle 496 cu in, step on the gas and turn sideways in the street. Today is sad, as 1.5L w/turbo FWD emissions proper hootchy-cooh that is rated at 32 MPG is not your dad's 69 Chevelle big block! DK, Omaha. ASE Master Tech since 78, retired.
Set up a wire terminal on your firewall , connected to the starter, so you can attach your bump starter to it instead of the starter. Hope this helps .
I have taken to hot lash being a spot check. I set everything cold [0.016" or so on a cam that wants 0.020" hot], then see what it settles in at - compensate as needed after it cools back down. Here's the problem: with 16 valves to check, maybe half will be a true hot measurement, and the rest will be wrong. That's if you are fast. But cooling begins as oil stops getting fed to the pushrods and valve covers are off. So rather than chase my tail, cold checks are my best indication of seat recession, valve lock/retainer problems, cam/lifter issues or tulip'd valves. I use lash caps to protect valve tips. Let me pick on the few older vettes that came with a solid cam as a reality check: they used the same style stamped steel rockers and tri-ovated locknuts like you'd find on any other sbc with hydraulic flat tappets of the same period. But for some reason, writers kept saying that same hardware was nearly "set it and forget it" when used on hydraulics but we had to worry ourselves to no end if applied to a solid flat tappet. Really??? Both views are off in my book by the way: hydraulics DO need maintenance, and solids got way too much. Why? Nobody kept temperature logs - one mans "hot" was another mans warm, plus... ambient temperature tilts working time around. That would have been a chore in the 70"s as laser temperature probes were not readily available as today - that was lab equipment at a university [maybe] or still in development. My fallback metric in the day? I had a dual point distributor which generally needed points dressed or replaced about every 6k miles. Lash checks often went with that as part of the tune, sometimes I pushed it further to go with the next oil change.
Hey bro amazing video. I do have a question about Thermal expansion and cold lash. From what I've read a build like mine that is cast head, and cast block. I should actually add .002 to the cold lash. Any thoughts?
I love shaft mount rockers for this exact reason cause long as I wasn’t out beating on it I’ve never found the lash way out. Even when i do beat on it hard its not ever real loose and shaft rockers remove the pushrod guides out of the equation.
I adjust solid lifter valve lash by ear, with the motor running and warm. It's easy, tighten them all up until they're quiet, back them off one at a time until they tick, then tighten them just until they first stop ticking. Once you've got them all in that position, back them all off, 1/4 turn for fine thread studs, 1/8 turn for course thread studs. It's never failed me, and i made custom valve covers for myself with easy pop out plugged holes over the adjustment nuts so i can keep the oil from squirting all over God's creation! :-)
So it takes 2 hours to adjust your valves? Been adjusting valves on diesel and gas engines for over 40 years. Taught the companion cylinder method or the rock method. Take the firing order and cut it in half and adjust the cylinders by its companion cylinder by firing order.
I'm rebuilding my 4.3 vortec, it has the roller block and balance shaft, what camshaft would work best , I would like a little more horse power but I want to run the rest stock, it is a standard transmission
Hey man what did you do to stop the guide plates from shifting when you torque them down I am having issues. I tried lubing the bottom of the stud etc. thanks same set up as your
My number 3 and 5 cylinder in my sbc 383 seem to require longer pushrods than all the other cylinders. Literally a full additional turn on the rocker cups to get them within the .019 spec. I have 7.900 in pushrods for all the other cylinders but those two require like an 8.10 to keep it under the two turns for these shaft rockers. Any idea why this is? It's a solid roller cam.
^ That, and I’ll add that maybe the rocker studs are off? That probably won’t matter nearly as much as the valves being machined definitely. But it’s a thing to check
@@HeadFlowInc I did not delete anything you know how they are now. I have had comments deleted for no apparent reason who knows what sets the algorithm off.
@@TPVPRO I was also mentioning the Wallace calculator differs from others I’ve used from piston manufacture etc. If the Wallace results are off you could run a full number of compression higher with the current cam. I’m still trying to verify who’s accurate. Dang
I not a expert. I was shown how to set the lash by a fellow who I thought was a sharp guy . He had set a lot of record ect in his race car . He had a g gas car among others . At any rate that how he told me how to set the lash . I ran a isky roller , Rev kit , Joe Mar girdle ect ect on my old school 302 chev I use to run up to 7500 or so . That's all the bottom end was good for may be 7800 or so . I going to suggest that you can change the lash some to see if the engine wants it . I done that before and I was surprised how much it made a difference.. I not sure the fellow is still around by I think his name was T Willy at Iskey told me my lash was supposed to be .030 hot on both , but I have ran it to closer to .010 and .012 . When I closed up the lash it really pulled out hard a bit later .. of course I had the cylinders heads off the Monza that he use to have so they were capable of making hp way past the limit of my bottom end . My lash really stayed dead on , if you have a lash problem I want to look at the lifter for problems . Thanks for the video
Does anyone know the timing set for a solid roller cam? I ordered 3 times and can’t find the right one. Solid roller cam for first gen small block Chevy . Please and thank you!
You guys are making way to much out of this 🙄, Your basically looking for a problem so if your having to adjust every 3000 mi your just putting a bandaid on the real Problem
