Hi All, so after a long hiatus due to raising a young family, I'm trying to get the old girl on the road. During COVID I bought a set of vortecs and had them reconditioned. I was ready to put it on the car now but I wanted to swap the 1.25in valve springs over from the old heads as they came with the cam from Comp.

The builder though machined for and installed larger 1.44 diameter valve springs. I had him measure the pressure and they're nearly the same, so I had him leave them on. Are there benefits of the larger valve spring?

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Same as any larger valve spring, compared to any smaller one.

For any given level of pressure and wire quality, it can use smaller wire, therefore more deflection is possible. Or any combination of those factors.

Your machinist must be an old guy (coming from someone that's been in this hobby since the 70s). Used to be the best thing you could do to get past the limits of stock-diameter valve springs. That's no longer the case.

Vortec heads are notorious for a particular problem when doing that to them, that all SBC heads have, but it's more prominent in Vortecs than others. There's a kind of lump next to the spring pockets, and the metal is REAL thin right there; cutting the pocket out larger, to the full depth of the pocket, risks hitting water. Besides just the extra cost of that machine work, that's one reason why LSx beehives are popular on those heads... you get very high pressure and lift capability from them, in a spring with stock (1.25"ish) OD at the seat, thus avoiding both the risk and the cost.

You don't say what "the cam" is, but if it's the one in your signature, use Comp 986 with the matching retainers, set up at 1.75".

 

Thanks for the reply Sofa. Your right on the guy being old school. That sucks to hear about the water jacket was not expecting that. These are Mexican Vortecs I heard they are thicker castings <fingers crossed>. I'm running a CC XE262 with only 479 lift, nothing crazy. I asked for screw in studs and guide plates. I did tell him that the vortecs didn't like a lot of lift so might need the bosses machined down, didn't expect him to do any machine work on the valves pockets.

He did install springs, can't tell me what part no they are, but did check the pressure so I guess I'll run these as they are and see how it goes.