lifters valvetrain

The valves should not open when you torque the rocker down. Your pushrods are too long and you are bottoming out the lifters. Youll have to get the rockers adjusted right before you can start on anything else. They sell shims and adjustable pushrods to help with this. Im not sure, but I think you can also convert your factory style non-adjustable rockers to stud mounted adjustables. Good luck.

I going to agree that your pushrods are too long.

You said you had both the heads and block milled, both of which sets the head lower or effectively making the pushrod longer.

Then on top of that, you went out and bought longer pushrods.

I would imagine its possible that running the engine with excessively long pushrods, that you could have collapsed a lifter or two.

Also, I don't know the procedure for adjusting the valves with pedestal rockers, but maybe your just using the wrong sequence. Its possible that the lifter is not resting completely on the cams base circle when making your adjustment which may account for why some open the valve while other don't.

I made this mistake when adjusting my stud mounts, fortunately I caught the error before I tried to drive it. On the studs, you use the exhaust opening / intake closing method. I did it in reverse, adjusting the the exhaust when the intake stated to open and the intake when the exhaust was almost closed and ended up with a similar problem with the valves opening.

Once you back off the rocker, you also need to give the lifter time to return to the neutral position before adjusting it again.

Finally, make sure your rotating your engine in the correct direction when your doing this. I know it sounds simple, but I remember another member having similar problems and that was all it turned out to be.

May not be any of these other than the push rods, I'm almost 100% on those being too long, Just some thoughts for ya.

why are you rotating the engine clockwise? it runs counterclockwise

superhuaman said:

why are you rotating the engine clockwise? it runs counterclockwise

Click to expand...

are you talking about when youre sitting in the car, or facing the motor?

steveslx - Your right about the orientation of the engine rotation.

I have a few lifters that do that as well, 3 to be exact. They don't have a 'preload' to them. When you turn the rocker nut to tighten down, it will almost instantly lock up. I wonder if that is what yours does as well?

Do you have a quick pic of the rocker arm sitting on the valve stem to see how 'centered' it is?

Also, from what I noticed I just personally watched my lobes to see when they go to base circle. Just keep your finger on them to keep pressure and a point of contact between the lifter roller and cam base. Then when it goes down and doesn't move for a little bit, you know you are on the base circle. Sometimes looking at the intake or exhaust to see if the other lifter is going down can be a bit deceiving in my opinion.