I will never forget that sinking feeling in my stomach when I turned the key and the engine rolled over sounding like nothing but a starter turning. I really didn't even think the engine was turning. That's what it sounds like when you have your roller rockers over-tightened which holds the valves open constantly.
I was compression-less.
But, I will also never forget that feeling of the engine turning over, firing right up, and then pulling her out of the garage and down the road. Your first engine rebuild. Success.
Can't see it here but the car has a thick layer of dust all over it.
So it ran good. Real good for my taste. I couldn't believe how good actually. No issues, felt hungry for speed. All those months of research and hard work were paying off.
But, like all good things come to an end, it was only a test drive. Back to work.
Time to inspect and button everything up. First I looked under the car for any leaks, NONE! Then I checked my headers again. They surprisingly stayed tight, checked every bolt and they were all snugged up nicely. Looked everything over and closed the hood. Time to sleep!
So over the next couple of days I couldn't get those rockers out of my head. When my cousin came over and helped me fix them up it was late at night, I had been working for 3 days straight over the weekend to try and finish this up. Literally crack of dawn to midnight or later. Motivation can kill sometimes... Anyways we were working on his knowledge of setting lash, some of it he was trying to remember as it had been a while for him. I had this burning thought that I didn't get them all perfect, one or two of the rockers maybe didn't get exactly a proper zero lash and a perfect 1/2 turn after for final setting. So I started researching them again.
I found all the knowledge I needed and went to work. I wanted them to be as close to perfect as I could get them, I wasn't about to ruin all this work and money! I tore off the upper intake and valve covers and set out to reset all of them again. This time I grabbed some cardboard and a marker to keep track of the valves as I went through firing order.
While I had everything apart again I also did more research on the pushrods I chose. I was really concerned about everyone who commented on the length I ended up with for my new heads. Again, I figured I did something wrong again.
You can see here, camera angle wasn't great, but the roller looks to be awful close to the edge of the valve stem.
But after all the learning I did I think I found enough to back the idea that while we would like the rollers to be perfect, the geometry of the valvetrain is the key. So I stuck to my original plan and kept the 6.100" pushrods. I think the design of the heads might have something to do with this. In the end, we shall see how long they last and how well they perform. So long as the bastards to break on me for now I think I can sleep at night knowing the lash and rockers are set properly and all the same.
A few pics for eye candy.
This is my temporary fix for my tailpipe. I removed the thermactor system which involved removing the hard line that connected to the back of the heads and flowed to the tailpipe. I'm not sure if
Flowmaster included the connection but there is a small piece of pipe the the long piece connected to with a metal hose clamp(a very thick tough clamp that took some work to get it removed). This is my old water pump bypass hose with a brass threaded plug I had lying around. I used a couple of regular hose clamps to hold the plug in and the other to hold it onto the short piece of pipe welded into the tailpipe. It will do for now until I can weld a more permanent cap in place.