has anyone ever had any problems with valve clearance or valve cover clearance in relation to the brackets and everything when using 416 heads on a 92 TPI 350 with 081s on it now?
i dont have any perimeter style valve covers so i need to get aftermarket ones and im not sure if i need the short or tall style valve covers to clear the rocker arms and all the acessories mounted up front
the 081s have 2" tall valve covers and ive seen the tall style valve covers are around 3-5/8"
basically do i need short or tall valve covers when putting on pre 86 heads on an 87-up block?

thanks for any help
tim

 

I am running them with the stock serpintine belt system on my 350 and I had a problem with one of the connections on the back of the alternator touching the valve cover. All I had to do was trim in down a bit with my die grinder and I havent run into any problems. I dont know of any other problems and I have seen a few guys on hear running perimeter bolt vavle covers with tpi with out any probs. Good Luck.

 

thanks for the help i didnt want to buy the valve covers and then find out they dont fit right
thanks for the advice
tim

 

replaced stock TPI L98 center-bolt heads with some excess unused bow-tie cast-iron heads. using roller rockers so I had to go with tall valve covers (moroso die-cast alum). 12V stud on back of alternator interfered with LH valve cover. fabricated a bracket for the top alternator mounting bolt to pivot it over, away from the valve cover about 4". used 1"x1/4" steel strap material from hardware store, cut it, bent it slightly in a vise to get the right 1/4" offset, welded 1/2" steel rod to brace it to unused 3/8-16 mounting point on TPI manifold base. painted flat black, looks factory. also trimmed the 12V alternator stud flush with the nut for more clearance. had to configure the geometry to watch out for belt coming off of idler pulley (towards alternator) getting pretty close to belt wrapped around water-pump pulley. clears fine, about 1/4" space. The further you lay over the alternator, the closer the gap. depends on how much clearance you really need between the alternator stud and the valve cover. used same steel strap material (twisted 90 degrees in a vise) to replace stock back-of-alternator brace to front #1 header GM mounting stud. Had to solder in a short wire extension for the 2-wire connector. Heat-shrink & loom. looks stock. had to measure a couple times to get the longer serpentine belt length right (3rd try, belt fit fine). works fine. nobody notices (except for the valve covers).