valve cover spacers

[papa scoops]

recent valve adjust, noticed valve covers barely clear, tiny dings from it on inner baffle. could double gasket it, but not comfortable with that idea, the taller cover don't look authentic....phred

[6s1640]

Hi Phred,

Reshape the baffles to get the clearance you want.  Are these stock valve train parts.  They should clear.  Are you using cork or rubber valve cover gaskets.  See if you can find a thicker gasket to just run a single.  Do you have solid or open COBRA valve covers.  The solids might sit higher.

Cory

[s2ms]

Phred,

You adjusted the valves? Nice! What's next?

Agree with Cory, should never have issues with stock valve train, are you using poly-locks? If you need just a little more clearance try Felpro 1645, basically a metal reinforced double gasket.

Dave

[shelbydoug]

You don't need poly-locks with a stock valve train. Cowles has some nice solid spacers for the covers that you will hardly notice. Says they will clear roller rockers.

[papa scoops]

the car is stock, but it has aftermarket rockers. car has always ran perfect with no problems. problem started when I took the intake off to spray it, I took all the ushrods out to remove the manifold (think big block) realized my mistake and put back together and now both covers are not flush with the heads. I need about an eight of an inch. these rockers have an allen bolt type stud and the poly lock nuts on top. might be comp cams, but I need to check with the oo, if he remembers. phred (yes, it's pert near back on the road)

[6s1640]

Hi Phred,

Sounds like you might need to pull the rockers off and replace those push rods with the correct length or measure them to verify they are correct.  If it all was good before hand, it should have gone back the same. You changed something and need to reverse.

See you Thursday.

Cory

[shelbydoug]

Hum. I was using Compcams 1.6 roller tipped rockers with polylocks and they fit with no gaskets, just glued on.  Not all polylocks are the same length though. Some could be shorter by the length that you need.

I did go to shaft 1.7 rockers and needed quite a bit of room to use those. Those have 1" solid spacers to clear. Upon measuring with Play Doe, they show they could be shaved about 5/16" and still clear. That's a bit of work and won't matter much with appearances anyway so I just left them alone that way.

Solid letter covers.


Roller tips make it easy to verify your push rod lengths. They leave a clear mark on the valve tip where they move. You want them centered through travel and if correct will only vary .100" or so. That mark is easy to see.

If you recently had the valves reseated, that could change that relationship a bit since the stem will be higher by the depth of the seat cut.

[1967 eight barrel]

Your stem mark should be no more than .045. from the roller pattern and it should be centered. If not. you have a valve train geometry issue easily corrected by correct pushrod lengths.
This usually isn't an issue unless you changed the cam. We have seen some issues with certain aluminum heads and they fact they the guide plates are flat out in the wrong place.
They do offer a split guide plate now that offers adjustment to center the pushrods and align them correctly with the stems.

                                                                                                     -Keith