3.0 Build Project: "Green Machine"

[MC#4]

Ugh. I really blame myself for buying them with almost no research, lesson learned I guess. Are the limitations of stock rockers known? Looking at the cam specs lift would be .437 with a 1.62 rocker (stock). It looks like there is plenty of room between the retainer and valve stem seal with the current setup which puts lift at .400. When I bought the 4g15 rockers the idea was that they would be better suited for high revs ~7500. With my socketed ecu I can only rev to 7k anyway and I think that's enough to reach my goal. I guess my question is, is there any reason I couldn't use stock hydraulic rockers with my crower regrind # F5365? Not sure what's up with crower's site, but I just checked the cam card and it doesn't match the one I printed out last year for the exact same number! how can they just change it? Now I really don't know what I have.

[Reaper1]

Brent, I thought you were the one that found out that the 1.5 rockers fall off the valves?

I know for fact that discussion and diagrams was talked about for the 2.2/2.5 8V guys with diagrams, even. I think Pope (yeah...I know) is the one that did all that.

[bakes]

i was to go the solid route i would mod hydraulic ( remove the lifter and insert a solid blank with a shim above it ) it is a little work to set the clearance's but it works

[MC#4]

i was to go the solid route i would mod hydraulic ( remove the lifter and insert a solid blank with a shim above it ) it is a little work to set the clearance's but it works

has anyone successfully done this? Any pics ever surface? That actually seems pretty feasible. I know a good machine shop that I've used to make things like this before. I'm sure they could handle it. I'm thinking just use a press fit on the slug and maybe even put a roll pin through it for security. Actually a roll pin would be great. Hmmm.

[bakes]

I wouldnt go press fit , i would make a solid lifter the same size as stock so there is some oil leaking past to lube the tip of the valve and make it easer to change / set up the shims

dont need to pin it once the cam/ rocker assmebley is install it will hold it all in just use gease to hold them in during install

and yes i have done this on a 3.5l motor and it woked great sorry no pics

[Force Fed Mopar]

The ones I'm working on have a press fit insert w/ a threaded hole in the center for an adjuster screw like a factory arm, and a hole drilled in the top for it to go through. The problem I've run into is that the lock nut up top doesn't clear the valve cover, like you can't bolt the cover done tight cause it hits. I want to try just a thin flat nut instead of a lock nut, he is worried about it coming loose but every factory adj rocker arm I've (in this style) just uses a regular flat nut.

[Reaper1]

I wouldnt go press fit , i would make a solid lifter the same size as stock so there is some oil leaking past to lube the tip of the valve and make it easer to change / set up the shims

dont need to pin it once the cam/ rocker assmebley is install it will hold it all in just use gease to hold them in during install

and yes i have done this on a 3.5l motor and it woked great sorry no pics

There should be enough oil splashing around up there that having a dedicated oil feeder really shouldn't be needed.

I might also suggest using valve caps. That way you aren't really risking mucking up the valve tip if something isn't quite right.

The ones I'm working on have a press fit insert w/ a threaded hole in the center for an adjuster screw like a factory arm, and a hole drilled in the top for it to go through. The problem I've run into is that the lock nut up top doesn't clear the valve cover, like you can't bolt the cover done tight cause it hits. I want to try just a thin flat nut instead of a lock nut, he is worried about it coming loose but every factory adj rocker arm I've (in this style) just uses a regular flat nut.

A flat nut should work fine. My Honda Shadow 750 used them for it's valve lash adjustment. I never had one back off. If in doubt...Loctite!

[bakes]

trust me there is not enought oil at the valve stem that it will squeal /sqeak at idle i think Brent ran in to same thing with the soild set up he ran
we are not looking for stream of oil more of good weep

i like the idea of valve lash caps

[Reaper1]

Sorry, Bakes....do you mean to say there IS enough oil, or there is NOT enough oil?

[MC#4]

trust me there is not enought oil at the valve stem that it will squeal /sqeak at idle i think Brent ran in to same thing with the soild set up he ran
we are not looking for stream of oil more of good weep

i like the idea of valve lash caps

Basing this on my observation while fiddling with the 4g15 setup. I think the infamous squeak is from the adjusting screw sliding across the valve tip since the geometry of the rocker is off. With my regrind cams with .400 lift the rocker slides all the way across the valve tip until the edge of the rocker actually contacts the valve tip. This wouldn't happen with the correct geometry of the hyd. rocker. I think splash oil would suffice and I'm still liking the press fit.

[Ondonti]

Basing this on my observation while fiddling with the 4g15 setup. I think the infamous squeak is from the adjusting screw sliding across the valve tip since the geometry of the rocker is off. With my regrind cams with .400 lift the rocker slides all the way across the valve tip until the edge of the rocker actually contacts the valve tip. This wouldn't happen with the correct geometry of the hyd. rocker. I think splash oil would suffice and I'm still liking the press fit.

trust me there is not enought oil at the valve stem that it will squeal /sqeak at idle i think Brent ran in to same thing with the soild set up he ran
we are not looking for stream of oil more of good weep

i like the idea of valve lash caps

I don't know anyone else who actually ran these things. It feels like a million years ago and I just did it so I could say "I did it!" I did not have any oil holes drilled and I found that I still had rocker to retainer interface. The squeak eventually went away. I took the heads off the Duster to put on my Spirit since it had leaking valves and looked at the clearances on the rockers. I found at least one and removed more material. I wish I had looked at the lifter tips. May I point out that it was just 1 squeak, not a team of squeakers so I don't think it was geometry or oiling. That said, no amount of oil will fix the geometry problems. If you look at those rockers, they are sitting on the valve positioned like they should be near high lift but the valves are closed. All the rocker proceeds to do is try to fall off the valve stem and the sharp edge of the rocker probably exaggerates the amount of lift that should be applied to the valve as it hits full lift. That is probably why the edges were worn off. May I point out that this is with a cam with a lot of material removed on the base circle. I would assume that the cam that cam with them has a lot of material removed. I had to adjust my lifter tips to barely sitting out of the rocker. It is possible that if the cam provided has more material removed, the geometry wold be a little better. These rockers do not have the same angle as our stockers and that causes most of the problems (the shorter length less so).

I am going to end up modifying stock lifters but we don't know what RPM our stock lifters collapse at so as long as your cam jives with the adjustment range of the stock lifter, things are fine. I know 7,000 is safe though since Joe has a stock motor and stock valvetrain.

Now, those stiffer springs are going to lower whatever the collapse RPM is. I say just run it and see what happens. Basically free. I know Sunmind (3000gt 12 valve) had a shop rev his motor up until all the lifters failed. Rockers were still intact. I don't think he had a rev limiter set and he was a bit mad since the shop was goofing around with his car. He had a RPW stage 2 and not sure about the valve springs.

Its pretty clear there is oil all round (some already cleaned off for picture taking of the shiny ring the valvestems, another covered in oil). This is some nasty edge to edge going on here. You can see I ground off the front of the rocker because even on the test bench I could see that even that location would interfere with the retainer/valve.

The most interesting thing I found was that the old slider heads required less clearancing, meaning I was really grumpy when I tried to fit them into my good roller heads and had to quickly hack off material. That is probably why one of them was still hitting. I just ground off where I saw rubbing marks based on turning the cam over.








Unmodified interference at the end of rocker.

Showing the wrong angle

[Sundance 6g72]

Im "stock" with 3.3 springs and ls retainers. not sure how that changes things. My stock springs caused valve float at like 6500+ rpm. Ed and I reved his motor to 7500rpm over and over and over and over with the 3.3 spring setup. no issues that we could see.

[MC#4]

Thanks for the pics and insight Ondonti. I'm really leaning towards modifying stockers if I feel the stockers won't work with the cam. I have the motor up at the shop and haven't been able to mess with it lately. I'm not concerned with valve float. I revved this motor to 7k many times with zero issues. That was all stock components albeit low mileage ones in excellent condition. Maybe I'm missing something but is there even a realistic limit of the stock hydraulics? I can't visualize how they could "collapse" at all. From what I see they are very different than lifters for a cam in block engine which I understand how they can collapse. Ours seem more like a dynamically adjusted solid lifter, perhaps even better than a staticly adjusted solid setup which you have to set clearances between the adjusting screw and valve tip which lowers actual valve lift.

Sundance, why do you think you had valve float at 6500rpms? weak springs?

[shayne]

it reads to me like when he was stock springs it revved to 6500 then floated. coo, info here for sure, i too would like to know the rpm capability of the stock rockers.

[Force Fed Mopar]

Me and Brent have visions?delusions? of spinning a 12v to 9k

[MC#4]

So I'm stuck at work bored out of my mind and just had an idea to modify stock rockers. As I said before I have a machine shop that is always willing to help me with weird projects like this. Right now I'm thinking of taking a stock rocker, pull the insert out, press in a new insert that sits flush, drill and tap insert, machine a custom threaded adjusting screw with a hex on the end that touches the valve tip.(to allow easy adjustment with a thin wrench) Use a thin nut that tightens against the underside of the rocker to eliminate valve cover clearance issue. sounds too easy... BTW I have a full week off work coming up and I want to make a serious dent in this motor assembly.

Force Fed, I haven't paid much attention to spinning a motor past 7500 but I remember 3S cars spinning close to 10k. Billet oil pump gears are/were avail. not sure what else would be req'd. Solid lifters and very strong valve springs would be a good start. Although I have no issues with this info (and the solid lifter info) being in my thread if a mod feels it appropriate to move it to a seperate thread I don't mind. I might just make a new thread later if I can make any headway on the subject.

Shayne, my question to sundance was more towards why his engine did that and mine did not. I revved to 7k on stock springs with no issues.

[Force Fed Mopar]

Not enough room on the bottom side for a nut. Unless maybe you cut the rocker back.

[Sundance 6g72]

maybe it sounded like float. it was somewhere above 6500rpm, maybe 7000.. cant remember. the 3.3 springs take anything you throw at them.. at least they have so far.

[MC#4]

Not enough room on the bottom side for a nut. Unless maybe you cut the rocker back.

I was just eyeballing based on the last picture that ondonti posted and there looks like enough room for a thin nut. Although not preferable, it wouldn't be that big of a deal to shave the rocker in that area if needed. Sundance, any thoughts on Schneider 6610 vs. 3.3 springs?

[Sundance 6g72]

If I understand right, the 3.3 is the better choice because they are beehive and they allow for more lift or something like that? Thats a question for Ed, he has worked with both first hand.