Okay i got my new 383 in the car had a hell of a time trying to get it to fire up finaly got it to run after adjusting the valve lash it ran like it was really cammed even and 2000rpms starting to break it it just ran it for like 10secs so a few days later we go to actualy break it in and it wont start check for spark its good pull the valve covers and some of the rockers are way to loose not even close to being right and they wouldt of been that way when i set the valve lash the first time, so i re adjusted them all and it still wont start... its a soild lifter cam and the specs say .030 for the valve lash have no clue what to do and need to get it running asap

 

Where to start here??. Do the heads have press fit rocker studs or are they screw in studs??. Are the valve springs the right spec for the cam your running and installed at the right height??. Are you running nye(sp) locks. Did you check for coil bind??. For the lift cam you have,did you have to do additional machine work to the heads??. Are the heads or deck cut??. Because of that,did you have to buy special length push rods??.

 

.030 hot Im guessing? Whats the cam card say?


If the heads are aluminum try setting them at .024 cold get it good and warm then pop a valve cover, see what you got. Dont set them tooo tight..

You may need to reset a few times if they move some but they will take a set and you wont have to touch them for a long time. Think I checked/adjusted in the first 60-80 mi. Checked tham again after 100+ mi they were right on the money.

When the exhaust valve starts opening do your intake lash

When intake starts to close set your exhaust.

If you have iron heads than the adjustment is different. Check to make sure but I think youll set them a couple thou OVER not under like aluminum heads.

 

Check everything 1gary said first.

Simplest way to adjust valves. If you have a standard firing order of 18436572. Bar the engine over until the timing mark lines up to TDC. This will either put #1 or #6 piston at TDC of the compression stroke. Adjust 8 of the valves then bar the engine over to TDC again and adjust the other 8 valves.

#1 TDC you can adjust
INT 1,2,5,7
EXH 1,3,4,8

#6 TDC you can adjust
INT 3,4,6,8
EXH 2,5,6,7

With aluminum heads, a cold adjustment is 0.004-0.006 tighter so your 0.030 will be no less than 0.024

 

they are iron heads and i had an engine build build the motor including all the head work everything was set exactly how it should be but thinking it had hydraulic lifters my uncle messed with them so i had to re set them so i assume scince the motor has been gone threw along with the heads anything that needed to be done should have been. and the cam card says .030int .030ext

 

Before you bend parts,pull the valve covers and check out what we suggested.I had a customer's engine that was built by a well known oval track builder and I kept overlooking coil bind because I thought it was done right. Well that was yrs ago and now I assume nothing and check everything. Amazing the things I find wrong...............

 

i looked on the cam box again and it does say .030 hot and they are iron heads so you think to set them alittle higher cold?

 

seen my engine builder at my work tonight and talked to him alittle bit about it he said when it was adjusted they stamped it or something so they wouldt loosen up but by us messing with them some how messed that up and that i might have to get lock nuts or something. not really sure what to think about that

 

There's NO WAY you'll be able to set that old "30-30" cam at only 2 spots of engine rotation. That thing is a relic from the days when there were NO valve springs whatsoever available on the market; so it has ramps that are FOREVER AND A HALF long, very very very slow and gradual by modern standards.

Set them very slightly tighter than "spec" right at first, because the parts will wear, and you'll gain several .001"s right away. I'd suggest about .026" cold. Later, when re-adjusting beyond the first couple thousand miles, set them about .002" tight when cold; reason being, cast iron "grows" more than steel, meaning as the engine warms up, you gain lash just from thermal expansion. You'll probably need to adjust them each time you change the oil.

You're going to HAVE TO put a bit more finesse to it than that "Chilton's" method of adjusting half at one spot and half at the other. That thing will sound like an old wore-out Xler 6-cylinder and will NEVER even come CLOSE to running right if you try that weenie method.

First thing you need to do, is get a crank socket, so you can turn the crank by some method other than the damper bolt. Otherwise, your next post on here will be about "how do I fix a stripped-out crank snout".

3 good ways to go about it:

Slowest, but least error-prone, is to simply loosen them all a full turn; make a note of where the crank is turned to as you start; go through ALL 16 wherever it happens to be sitting, TIGHTENING ONLY (do not loosen ANY of them, EVER, during this method) to the spec; turn the engine a small amount (less than 45° on the crank); go through them all again, TIGHTENING ONLY (do not loosen ANY, EVER); repeat repeatedly until you've made a little more than 2 full crank rotations.

Next best way is, "EOIC". In this method, you adjust each cyl's intake valve just as that cyl's exhaust barely starts to open, and adjust the exhaust just after the intake has fully closed. This is a bit quicker but requires that you actually pay attention to what you're doing.

Most precise is, adjust each valve individually like above, except adjust it when the same type valve on the cyl that's 4 cyls away in the firing order (180° of cam rotation) is at PEAK opening. If you find one such position for one valve, then you can rotate the crank exactly 90° for that valve type for each successive cyl. So for example you'd walk up to the motor and observe that, say, the #6 exhaust is at peak opening; at that point you'd adjust #1 exhaust (fiting order is 18436572); then rotate the engine exactly 90° on the crank, and at that point #5 exhaust will be at peak opening, and you'll adjust #8 exh; and so on. Repeat for the intakes.

If you're using stock rockers and rocker nuts, you have NO HOPE of the adjustment staying put. Either go to the hardware store and buy 16 3/8"-24 (fine thread) nuts and tighten them down on top of the others to make "jam" nuts, or buy a set of Poly-Locks. I'd suggest the former because your stock rubber rockers aren't going to last long anyway.

When you put the valve cover gaskets on, use gorilla snot to glue them into the valve cover, and grease between the VC and the head; be ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY WITHOUT A DOUBT CERTAIN that the valve covers are STRAIGHT, if they're sheet metal, or in fact, that they bend UP slightly at the bolt holes, rather than what happens to them when the bolts get tightened; use LONG load spreaders under the bolts; and DO NOT overtighten the bolts. I'd recommend the Moroso gaskets that are rubber with a steel core. Yeah I know they're a bit $$$, so don't bother P&Ming about the cost; but you could either do that, or buy LOTS of oil to replace what leaks, and LOTS of cheeeeeeeeeepies that will fail frequently.

 

With iron heads, set the valves according to the cam card. You only need to set cold valves a little tighter with aluminum heads.

 

I disagree.

My opinion is based on actual science and fact.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_expansion

Scroll down about ¾ of the page. Look at the table. Observe that the thermal coefficient of linear expansion of "iron" (actually, pure ductile iron) is greater than that of "carbon steel" (such as push rods are made of). This table doesn't include "gray cast iron" such as heads are made of, but its TC of E is higher than pure iron, and therefore significantly higher than that of steel, although nowhere near as high as aluminum. Roughly, cast iron heads expand more than the push rods (the phenomenon that adds lash), about ¼ as much as aluminum does.

All of which also fails to account for wear on the parts. If you set the rockers to the cam card setting, then are ALWAYS ging to be looser than that, since wear never PUTS METAL ONTO the parts, it only TAKES METAL OFF. If you leave them a .001" or 2 tight, then as they wear, they PASS THROUGH the exact spec, and you get a longer interval between required adjustments.

Set your valves a .001" or 2 tighter than the cam card spec, to account for the accumulation of all the above effects.

 

Sofa.That is good info as long as we assume it was a good build in the first place and he didn't damage anything while he was running the engine adjusted as if it was a hydo lifter cam which would have been during a critical cam break-in period and been way too tight.

Two of us have told him what to check and he seems resistant to do that.So if he doesn't follow that advise it really limits what we can do for him. It's a hard thing to go back to look honestly on a mistake made,kind of humbling,but sometimes you just have to swallow your pride to make it right.

 

Did you ever think that maybe i didt know that answers to that scince i didt build the motor or do the head work? im not a motor expert this is my first motor ive ever had done and i never ran the motor like that it never ran until i adjusted them the right way then it ran for alittle while but the next time we went to start it most where loose. i dont know what to do its not a matter of pride i just want the dam thing to run

 

A solid tappet cam is a big leap for a beginner. Setting up and breaking in a basic hyd flat tappet cam is hard enough. You have bitten off a big chunk for someone just starting out. For one thing, a solid cam and stock valve train parts do not mix well.

The stock components were intended to work with a mild stock production hyd tappet cam. They will not hold adjustment well enough to not cause you constant grief. You may be able to live with the tappet noise but having one or more run tight and burn valves will make you wish you had spent the $$ on screw in studs, roller rockers and poly locks in the first place.

It has been suggested that you check for coil bind and carefully look for bent push rods. There is no better advice for you. Now is the time to recheck yourself and be sure that nothing has been damaged. May want to check compression to be sure you didn't bend valves.

Did you check overlap clearance between the valves and piston tops before you ran the engine?

 

already wish i had roller rockers thats what i was showed how to adjust on, gonne compression test saturday hopefully and i never checked over lap dont really know how to do that, i know how to check for bent push rods but for coil bind what exaclty do i have to look for?

 

What steps did you do to adjust the valves?

 

When the valve is fully open, there should be at least 0.060" clearance between the coils. Any less than that and you risk going into coil bind.

post #4. I have yet to see an automotive camshaft that can't be adjusted like that.

 

ive done it where the exhaust just almost opening then adjust the intake then turn the motor over by hand until the intake is almost all the way up so it almost closed then adjust the exhaust i did it the way the engine builder showed me i didt really explain that good i know some people say do it with them comepletely closed but he said exhaust just pinching down and intake almost all the way up

 

Doing one cylinder at a time means turning the engine over a lot more. The best way to make sure you're not adjusting the valves while they're in overlap is to adjust one while the other is fully open. using the procedure I posted above, you're always adjusting a valve that's on the base circle while the other is open on that cylinder.

My roller cam has over 0.800" lift on both lobes and 282/290 @ 0.050 duration and I can still adjust the valves that way.

 

You gota get the poly locks. You never said if you found out from the builder if those heads had pressed in rocker studs or screwed in ones.

 

he called me this moring and i am gonna stop by him tonight after work and figure all that out

 

To check overlap clearance, you install light springs in place of the valve springs on one cylinder(whichever one is easiest to access. Then bring the piston around to TDC on overlap, in other words 360 degrees from TDC. Then check for clearance by measuring how far the valve can be depressed with your fingertip before it stops against the piston top. Roll the crank back and forth 10 degrees from this position and recheck. There should really be no less than .100 inches clearance to be safe.

In cases of high lift, high duration cams with low LSA numbers, especially flat tappet cams where the ramps are slower, overlap can be great enough to cause interference at the overlap point. The piston tops need to be relieved using a valve relief cutting tool to correct this.

 

Just going threw a check list and overlap clearances,coil bind,poly locks,and of course if given your cam requires long slot or roller rockers.Then if you have now bent valves,bent push rods,if you have push in rocker studs that aren't pinned,if those where pushed out.

 

simple question i got some aermotive locks i think there called so the nut on the stud wont back off so i set my vavle lash with the nut that is on there then tightin down the lock thing i got in this kit on top of it right?

 

Those are a cheap alternative to poly locks and they'll serve to prevent the nuts backing off. Be sure to check and recheck your lash adjustment before and after tightening the locks as they are likely to affect your final setting. They won't help you if you have press in studs that are pulling out of the heads.

 

but they go over the nut ? u dont take the nut off and just put these on right?


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http://www.summitracing.com/search/P...cker-Arm-Nuts/

 

now a new problem for the first time ever when i tried to take the nuts off the studs the nuts didt turn but the whole studs did and i had to take them out to get the nuts offf them. i really dont think the they shoulda screwed out that easy even tho the nut was on there pretty good,

 

So you have screw in studs and not pressed in? If it unscrewed that easily, it's possible it backed itself out of the head slightly causing the lash to loosen off. Red Loctite, double nut the stud if the stud doesn't have a hex portion on it and torque it back into the head.

 

That's a good thing you found something and because they backed out some,maybe you didn't damage anything. Have or did you do the compression test before you messed with the nuts??.