Is it ok to run spings that are smaller than the spring pocket with iron heads on a mild street motor? Ive seen it alot on stock and aftermarket heads with the springs smaller then the spring pockets and no spring locator, but I was never really sure whether or not its kosher.

 

I can think of quite a few factory heads with no pocket and no locator. I wouldnt lose any sleep over it.

 

Will the springs be located at their ID by the OD of the valve guide boss?
If not, I wouldn't do it.

 

If you're talking about installing 1.25" springs into the typically larger spring pocket of an aftermarket year like a Dart Iron Eagle or something similar, it's no problem at all. I've done that several times with no problems at all for thousands of miles and many WOT blasts, even though the bottom of the spring is not contained perfectly by it's ID around the guide boss.

If it's an aluminum head you need a hardened spring cup underneath it or it'll chew into the spring pocket, but otherwise, the same rule applies.

It's not a problem for a mild performance motor. Nothing to get bent out of shape over.

 

My current vortecs need just about everything under the sun done to them, so I was just looking at other options in case they turn out to be bottomless money pits or there is some other unforeseen problem with them.

I have and am going to be running a retrofit XE270HR with a 110 LSA (1600 - 5500 adv. operating range) and some form of beehive spring from Comp. With the current heads, it wont be an issue as the springs will be the same dia. as the seat. As an alternate set of heads I was looking at the small port bowtie vortecs. Im not dead set on running them, just something else to plug into the decision matrix. The ports a little larger, which Im not crazy about, but the cost isnt too bad, the flow will be about the same and my current ported castings and they come machined for screw in studs, larger valves, and springs. The also come with HUGE spring pockets, so no matter what spring Id use, they still wont be near the OD of the guide or ID of the pocket.

 

Valve spring cups are cheap, and put the mind at ease. I wouldn't let this little difference effect your choice.
The good news is that if (err, when?) you decide to upgrade the cam, you can buy some 1.43"OD springs and drop them in, without needing to remove the heads to have them machined.
I'd consider that a big plus.

 

Actually, the motor was already stripped to the short block and in pieces. Ive always wanted to use a decent roller cam for as long as I can remember, so I decided to say to hell with it and put one in.

The caveat to the spring cups is that it looks like that with the vortecs Id have to have the valve guides machined down, unless its possible to get custom sizes or something. Does comp do that sort of thing?

 

I thought with the lift of that cam, you'd be getting the valve guides machined anyway?
And with the vortecs, you wouldn't need spring cups, the 1.25" OD springs would fit right in.

I thought you were just wondering if you can use your existing 1.25" OD beehives on a head setup for 1.43" springs? If you're using the Vortecs you can just drop 'em in and go... right?

 

With the current ones, once all the machine work is done, the springs are a drop in affair. Oddly enough, the spring pockets themselves will actually need the machining. Not larger, but deeper on the intake side. With the offset retainers for the beehives, the net lift is .500" with teh stock valve guides with standard valves. The OEM exhaust valves had a pressed on heel that resulted in a longer valve tip, which required a deeper spring pocket. The deeper pocket gives just about the right installed height on the exhaust, but leaves the spring a bit scrunched up on the intake with its shallower pocket.

These heads need just about everything done to them, which makes me wonder if a new bare set of bowtie vortecs would be a viable alternative cost wise, which lead to my original question as the spring pockets are ~1.63" in dia. Much bigger then any spring Id ever run in there.