A what point do you know you need to re adjust your valves?

[bigmanjbmopar]

Is it a loss of power? it is noise? what do you notice that would make you know you need to check adjustments? What check / test can you do to tell? leak down?

 

[Budnicks]

It really depends on what type, what quality & style of camshaft, what valve springs, how much spring pressure your running, whether your using a solid roller, mechanical/solid, hydraulic lifter, or even what type rockers etc.... But the more valve lift you have & the more aggressive ramp on the camshaft, then the more frequently you should check & adjust the rockers for either the proper preload or valve lash... IMHFO If it's a race or aggressive profile camshaft, High HP engine, revving High RPM's, Then I would check them & do a leak down test, every round & between rounds at the track, every 100-200 or so miles on the street under regular driving, it will tell you if your having an issue in the valve train, before something bends or breaks & costs you a ton of money, because you didn't keep on-top of the valves, springs locks retainers, leak down test #'s will tell you valve &/or ring seal issues... But for just a street car, noise maybe, loss of power maybe, could be a sign of an issues, but power loss will be nominal really, with just a couple thousands or so out of adjustment, if it's noticeable power loss, you may have a larger problem... Or a certain mileage interval you should make it a routine when, you change your oil, if it's a mechanical-solid lifter or solid roller lifter @ a minimum... On a high lift especially 0.550" gross lift or more range, on a Hydraulic camshaft/lifters, if you have good quality hardened locks & retainers, or good quality hardware on the rocker/adjusters or adjustable push rods, I would say every couple of oil changes, every 5000 miles any way, just to be safe, to see if your sucking a valve or a valve spring going away, lock or keeper going bad etc.... On non-adjustable type stamped steel rockers on shafts, you don't need to adjust them at all, or you have the wrong push-rod lengths to begin with... Depends on what you have, how much you want to be concerned with the maintenance issues, its easy enough to do, easy enough to access, easy enough to check, it's cheap insurance to stay on-top of the adjustment, on a large performance engine investment... my $0.02 cents... have fun

 

[70rr-brian]

I adjust mine with every oil change. Solid roller cam. Poly locks. Very little adjustment is ever needed on mine with .588 lift.

 

[bigmanjbmopar]

Gross lift is 538 / 534 hyd cam solid roller lifters comp springs poly locs 1.5 rockers. Seems like a loss of power but until the new carb shows up can't be sure. need more tools. is there an inexpensive tool for leak down testing? Have only adjusted them twice in two years 3 oil changes. thinking along the lines you guys say it's time. Just wanted to know if there was some obvious indicator?

 

[Meep-Meep]

Usually you have to find the trend yourself by checking them on a regular basis. I will say this, if you have to adjust all the time then something is moving and you need to start looking for wear signs. Like Budnicks says, it depends on your combo as to what to expect. Race cams and high spring pressures are usually not nice to valve gear so expect parts to wear sooner than later.

 

[70rr-brian]

I'm curious. With that hydro/solid combo what are you setting your lash at when you do set it? And do you set it hot or cold?

 

[383man]

I put a few thousand miles a year and some track passes on my 63 and I only adjust mine once a year. And most are still good when I check them. Ron

 

[dvw]

These words are from David Reher. Always adjust cold, check hot. It's impossible to get accurate hot temp for all 16 valves. Aluminum heads, iron block I start .006" tighter than spec. After checking them hot (Only need to check a a couple pair) let it cool. Check them again and adjust from your hot readings. Say you start at .014"baseline. Hot you get .022" and you want .020". Let it cool and see what you get. If you still measure .014" cold, you need to start at .012" cold to hit your target. Once you know your cold numbers (int and exh could be different) it's an easy check before starting to keep an eye on them. If you've let them go to the point where they're way off I would keep a very close eye to see if they change again, especially if it's a roller. Lash changes on a roller are sure sign of trouble.
Doug

 

[Cranky]

Had a .660 lift Isky roller cam (non roller rockers) and once thinks broke in, it stayed adjusted. On the other hand, a buddy with a .600 lift flat tappet and the very same brand of rockers and push rods couldn't make his to stay adjusted. He even put Loc-tite on the adjusters!

 

[Supershafts]

Budnicks and dvw gave good info to follow.

I'll 2nd dvw on adjustment, always adjust them cold and then after it is fully up to temp check them again, take notice of where they are hot and then you'll have a cold setting you can use to check them. If you take some time checking one side, restart it and get temp back in the motor again if you have AL heads.

In my experience if you have GOOD rockers and GOOD lifters and GOOD valves, retainers, locks and everything else, and didn't buy toms used stuff and didn't go dollar store shopping and or get the china pirated copies and if you're below 6500 rpm mostly street use and below 430 lbs you could get by checking yearly and i wouldn't be surprised if no adjustment is needed (this would be roller stuff, i haven't ran flats in forever) and you check every couple years
However if you're at or over 6500 rpm and doing it all the time and street use you should check it periodically to get an idea, most cases if everything is GOOD stuff with the lower psi you should be good still.
Larger stuff seeing more than or even up to 6500 in na or fa issues but with pressures over 500 and even more up to the thousand plus area you need to check, check, check, check, check, check and check again.
A example of not checking, had a outlaw motor well known and very competitive always one of the top 3 it wound up losing a roller, going by power and times the loss of lift that was happening, it didn't slow down or lose power on the previous runs, so can't always see a issue in a time slip or power. So what was learned for some was if they checked valve adjustment and noted them they would have seen they are putting in putting in putting in, and that means something is wearing wearing wearing... but the car was in the .10's the last 2 runs, but had things got checked it wouldn't have been the squealing noise on the next run that determined a problem and it would not have caused the entire motor to come apart and need a new cam, bearings, gaskets and lost time... but then again had lifters been changed the same wouldn't have happened.
I doubt any on here will have that issue so quickly but the outcome whether its a outlaw motor or street motor is the same, cost is the only difference.

.

 

[bigmanjbmopar]

I'm curious. With that hydro/solid combo what are you setting your lash at when you do set it? And do you set it hot or cold?

No lash on solid rollers. Set them at 4 cold and call it good at 6 hot.

The set it is all new stuck good quality. After replacing the carb do not notice the same things anymore but going to go through the motor as far as dialing it in as much as possible after the 4th of July we will see if anything loosened up or not lol never take it over 6500.