I have a 302 w/ a 303F cam stock heads rods and rocker arms. I had the heads milled down. Basically a clean up cut about five thousands taken off and I had the block milled also. A 3 angle valve job and new seals. With that being said I reassembled my heads and got everything back together and I primed the motor before startup and I have valvetarin noise. No knocking just a lot of ticking. You can hear it when it idles but very little. However when you rev it up or when you drive it you can really hear it both inside the car and outside. the rockers are non adjustable pedastal mount. So I tore my valve covers off and did everything all over again. The way I did it was I started at the first cylinder on the drivers side front of the motor. And I turned the crank until I seen the exhaust valve just start to open and then I waited about 1 minute or so for any bleed down and I torqued my intake rocker down to 20 FT LBS. Then I continued to turn the crank until the intake on that same cylinder completely opened and then closed and then I torqed the exhaust rocker down to 20 FT LBS. I did that for every cylinder and each one took about 3/4 of a turn to acheive 20 FT LBS. Started vehicle and still noisy. So I just now tore apart again and checked my preload and I am at about thirty thousands. The tech from Crane Cams tells me they like it to be around 40-45 thousands. So I guess I need longer push rods. I figured they would be to long w/ the hads and the block being cut on. I have been told by some guy to just torque the bolts down to around 22 FT LBS and see what that does. Is it safe to do this w/out damaging anything until I get longer rods or is that a big no no? Will torqueing it down more even help any or am I wasteing my time? Any help would be appreciated.
