jakelandry
10+ Year Contributor
- 976
- 157
- Oct 13, 2009
-
Minden,
Louisiana
I rarely post anymore due to the outrageous amount of topics that have been covered on the forum but this one has me in a bind. I recently picked up a set of venom cam gears and Kiggly beehives for a good price. I degreed my cams and installed the springs and other head components after a good cleaning and whatnot. All seemed good so I cranked the car. Ran good for a minute till the lifters finally got quiet. Once they were primed the car sounded like it was only hitting on 3 cylinders.
Enter diagnosis mode. Before any of the following are suggested, let it be known I have narrowed it down to a mechanical part.
Spark, fuel, signals to both, wiring, ecu, fuel pressure, injectors, tune, all fine.
I narrowed it down to a single cylinder via turning the injectors off in link once at a time and listening for a lack of change. I also mechanically verified by manually pulling the plug off the injector also.
I did not set ignition timing yet but that is not the problem. The injectors are no longer dialed in 100% since I degreed the cams but that's not a problem. Dialing in the cams did not cause this because it is only on one cylinder. Thus it must be mechanical.
So I pull the VC off and rockers are still there. Lifters are hard as a rock. Everything seems normal. Nothing changed since the last time I had the car out other than what I listed so I assume the valves did not bend themselves. So I took out the lifters on that cylinder and bled them. Crank the car back up and runs good again. Obviously I'm getting closer. Assuming the lifters had an issue I bought a set of Evo 8 lifters. They are shorter than any of the other lifters but buscher runs them and I don't intend to call him a liar. So get them in and exact same scenario as before. The only thing I can think is a valve is hanging open once the lifters prime up enough to allow full lift from the cams. When installing them I had to shim a single lifter an extra .030 to make "comfortable" contact with the cam. Obviously something isn't right there, but the car ran 100% perfect before the upgrades and I don't recall doing anything valve bendingly horrible. I used the rope in the cylinder trick to hold the valves up when installing the valve springs but that's all I can think of. I'm open to any logical suggestions from you guys before I pull the head. I have tons of videos and photos but honestly I feel like I've described it well enough. As always, thank you for your time.
Enter diagnosis mode. Before any of the following are suggested, let it be known I have narrowed it down to a mechanical part.
Spark, fuel, signals to both, wiring, ecu, fuel pressure, injectors, tune, all fine.
I narrowed it down to a single cylinder via turning the injectors off in link once at a time and listening for a lack of change. I also mechanically verified by manually pulling the plug off the injector also.
I did not set ignition timing yet but that is not the problem. The injectors are no longer dialed in 100% since I degreed the cams but that's not a problem. Dialing in the cams did not cause this because it is only on one cylinder. Thus it must be mechanical.
So I pull the VC off and rockers are still there. Lifters are hard as a rock. Everything seems normal. Nothing changed since the last time I had the car out other than what I listed so I assume the valves did not bend themselves. So I took out the lifters on that cylinder and bled them. Crank the car back up and runs good again. Obviously I'm getting closer. Assuming the lifters had an issue I bought a set of Evo 8 lifters. They are shorter than any of the other lifters but buscher runs them and I don't intend to call him a liar. So get them in and exact same scenario as before. The only thing I can think is a valve is hanging open once the lifters prime up enough to allow full lift from the cams. When installing them I had to shim a single lifter an extra .030 to make "comfortable" contact with the cam. Obviously something isn't right there, but the car ran 100% perfect before the upgrades and I don't recall doing anything valve bendingly horrible. I used the rope in the cylinder trick to hold the valves up when installing the valve springs but that's all I can think of. I'm open to any logical suggestions from you guys before I pull the head. I have tons of videos and photos but honestly I feel like I've described it well enough. As always, thank you for your time.