Rockers keep popping off!!!

[turbotom]

Ok I finally got another fresh rebuilt head with stock valves springs and added GSC zero tick lifters with 272 DKS cams from FFWD connections. I haven't been able to drive the car because some exterior panels are getting painted so the car has seen a lot of idle time,. But every time the car sits, 1 or 2 rocker rollers will pop off. I bleed them, sat in clean oil for a week, and etc.... Now when I go to put the rockers back on the lifter(s) are rock hard also leaving the valves to sightly be open which won't turn over.

Once I bleed them again put the rockers back, she will fire up and run so smoothly. Great awesome, let the car run, and ran for a hour. Shut it off for about a hour and 20 mins, went to start it back up to put her to bed in the garage. Same thing again, W...T...H!!!!!!!

Can someone please enlighten me why this might be happening, there is only so many times I can put up with take the valve cover off!!!!!!

 

[Cdc1221]

With those reground cams, did you use the hla shims? If not, they could be over extending

 

[91mits]

u need to run the shims the dks came with,...

 

[turbotom]

Bought them used, so no shims cam with them. I was told from the person that had them on his car that he didn't run shims. I never questioned him because he ran 9s in his awd mirage but maybe because I have stock springs and that's why it's doing this? Hopefully getting this shims will stop this problem.

 

[91mits]

yes, he most probably ran a fully built head and all the extra goodies...im sure you can email darren from ffwd for some shims and he can set u up with some, hes a real helpful guy.

 

[twicks69]

You need to run the shims under the lifters. It's just a washer, contact Darren for the thickness washers or get them from him.

 

[BogusSVO]

IIRC They are just #10 flat washers, appox .050 or so thick. The parts store or hardware store will have them.

Is it the same rockers kicking off?

 

[turbotom]

IIRC They are just #10 flat washers, appox .050 or so thick. The parts store or hardware store will have them.

Is it the same rockers kicking off?

No, different one every time. When it's running after bleeding them again on the head the engine will turn over and with valve oil cap off, the lifter only moves a small increment so maybe when she shut off and the oil bleeds back down, the lifters stay pumped up and pop the rockers because the lifters are rock hard.

So to me this means that the check valve is lock and the lifter stays pump up rather than being pump down. Not only that, when I put the cam on it's highest lobe the lifter maybe push down a 1/4 of the way so it's not like she is bottoming out but rather not pushing down further enough.

Now thinking about it, putting shims will raise the lifter much higher, cause the lifter to push down further enough allowing the check valve to stay open and not locked or the lifter pumped up.

 

[BogusSVO]

Do you see a shim under the valve spring? You should have the factory spring seat, with a shim under that.

Also the fresh valve job the head received, was it a back yard special? Pulled apart and valves lapped in? Or did it go to a machine shop and have the seats cut and the valves ground?

 

[turbotom]

Do you see a shim under the valve spring? You should have the factory spring seat, with a shim under that.

Also the fresh valve job the head received, was it a back yard special? Pulled apart and valves lapped in? Or did it go to a machine shop and have the seats cut and the valves ground?

No B&K machine in Fall River Mass does all my machine work, he is very good and even show me how he does it. Been going to him for years and never had any issues with him. There are 2 shops that are local to me in the same city and they are awful which one of them ruined my head. So I never went back there to those hackers again.

I was just a simple head job, clean, seat, valve seals, check valve guides. mirror finish decking for MLS and stock valve train. This car is just a street car so, not looking to go over board with it, 350 hps or more.

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[BogusSVO]

Well, the pics show some but not all.

I see you have not done oil port mod 1
http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/newbie-forum/341028-4g63t-head-oil-port-mod.html

So you may not be getting enough oil volume to fill the HLAs. But that will depend on head thickness, and the oil transfer slot + HG thickness combined depth.

Now if you do not see a shim under the spring seat, your spring tension can be way low, but that will depend on spring installed height, and how worn the springs are.
But from what I have found, stock turbo spring are weak after about 100k miles or so.

http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/cylinder-head-short-block/466233-checking-4g63-valve-springs.html

Now If the springs were installed tall, that will lower the seat pressure even more.

Depending on where the valve tip height was set after the valve job, you may or may not need the HLA shims.

These are the questions that need answers.

It could be that you just need new springs. For the simple fact that it sounds like you are hitting valve float on start up and kicking the followers, due to low spring tension not allowing the follower to keep contact with the cam.

Or you do not have enough oil volume to lock the HLAs in place.

The third would be valve tip height is too short.

Also are the DKS272 you have regrinds, or were they ground on new blanks?

Measure the base circle of the cams and that will let you know.

That is shown in this thread.
http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/art...-how-figure-camshafts-lift.html#post153121578

 

[turbotom]

Well, the pics so some but not all.

I see you have not done oil port mod 1
http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/newbie-forum/341028-4g63t-head-oil-port-mod.html

Nah I didn't do the oil mod seeing that it's pretty much a street car nor done this mod before to any of my cars I build and never had a lack of oil pressure up top.

But I see what your saying which makes good sense. This is the second head on this car because the head that was on the engine when it was running in the car ran fine with stock cams and the same rockers. When the engine was pulled off, I was going to redo the head seeing that it may need a valve job and seals. So I didn't want to take a chance and needing a valve seal job after so I pulled the head. I pull the cams out, rockers and lifters before I bring it to the machine shop so he has less to do and was going to run 272s anyways.

I noticed that the lifters were stuck in the head and for the life of me, say hell with this head!!! My buddy gave me a 90 head so I sent that to the machine shop guy and explained to him how PITA the lifters were on the other head were to come off. The ones on the 90 head came out like butter with out any problems but told him, " I don't care how long it takes you to do the head work, CHECK EVERYTHING make sure I won't have any issues. He say "no problem, any issues I'll call you to let you know" Ok great!!!

So that being said, with the stock cams it ran fine with the old head and stock cams and he never had an issue because the simple fact the engine I have was from a running car he drove everyday as a daily. I know for a fact there was no issues on stock form.

Like everyone said, I really feel it's the cams and the HLA need shims to not do this anymore. The one way to find out is to put stock cams back in but that's time consuming.

Now I have a question, now that I have 3g lifters, the oil hole on the rocker is small;

Should I bore it bigger? and what size should I if yes?

 

[BogusSVO]

No leave the oil port in the follower alone.

It is not oil pressure in the head that I am concerned about but volume/flow of oil.

I have installed both the DKS272 in regrinds and new blanks. I have not heard any reports that they needed the shims. This would be due to the tip height being towards the upper spec limit.

I would have to surmise the ones that end up having to use the HLA shims are running tip heights towards the min spec.

Sounds like the original head had a fair amount of varnish build up to lock the HLAs down like that. Most the time they tug out with your fingers or with a pair of pliers. I sometimes use a rubber tip blower nozzle and shoot compressed air down the oil bleed hole, they will shoot out like little rockets.

 

[turbotom]

No leave the oil port in the follower alone.

It is not oil pressure in the head that I am concerned about but volume/flow of oil.

I have installed both the DKS272 in regrinds and new blanks. I have not heard any reports that they needed the shims. This would be due to the tip height being towards the upper spec limit.

I would have to surmise the ones that end up having to use the HLA shims are running tip heights towards the min spec.

Sounds like the original head had a fair amount of varnish build up to lock the HLAs down like that.
Most the time they tug out with your fingers or with a pair of pliers. I sometimes use a rubber tip blower nozzle and shoot compressed air down the oil bleed hole.. they will shoot out like little rockets.

Well I found out what was the problem which your going to tell me "I told you so", . Ok, I had a day off from work today and went to the storage to see what is going on and to my surprise none of the rockers fell off But on the intake cam only the 4 rockers were loose on cylinder 4 and 2, WTH?

Well after doing some investigation, I noticed the valve springs are getting stuck and not springing back fast enough causing the rockers to be loose and therefore fall out of place because of no tension. Now I'm at this point where I pissed So I decided to swap out the 272s to stock ones because maybe the "stock valve spring are weak or not strong enough for the extra lift".

Put the stock cams in and took out the spark plugs and disconnect the CAS while cranking with a buddy in the car to see if it gets better. At first, the rockers flopped around until they stopped and had tension, besides one which took longer. Finally once that one rocker was nice and tight, I decided to start the car up. She started up ran good besides small amount of ticking but none the less she is running. So pretty much the problem was and is the valve springs are too weak to handle the extra lift: sosad:

So you can say "I told you so", . But I do really appreciate you helping me figure this out. For now, I'll leave the stock cams in, require a new head and put stiffer springs AND then put the 272s in, This a DSM lesson in my book that I won't forget and no matter how many years I have been working on these dam cars, these things always finds a way to kick your ass in the end, .

 

[BogusSVO]

All that matters is the issue has been figured out and you are back up and running.

Glad it was something as simple as going back to the stock cams, if you can call that simple...

 

[viperlp01]

Lol its not the extra lift. It is the improper vavletrain geometry that is a result of a reground camshaft being used in our lifter/follower(rocker arm) environment.

 

[turbotom]

All that matters is the issue has been figured out and you are back up and running.

Glad it was something as simple as going back to the stock cams, if you can call that simple...

Oh my god man this car is so twisted!!!!!

I FOUND THE PROBLEM and retract my statement above

So later on tonight, I to decided disassemble my old head and I noticed this:

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So now that being said, this head is doing the same thing and I know why. The car has been sitting for 12 years so it had old gas but more like water I drained the tank to the best that I could and clean the best that i can. Put fresh gas, poured dry gas, and octane booster to burn off that awful fuel.

That being said, the old gas plus other chemicals made this tar like gunk build up the intake valves and gunking the valve stems between the guides causing the stuck feeling of the valves like I mention before. So when the engine is running, the tar like substance liquefies and once it cools down, it hardens up + builds up on the valves thus causing this same problem the old head had

Now the goal is to take the tank down, put the new one I got tonight, with a new sender, change filter again, and start fresh . For the gunk build up in the head, if I do a Wynns fuel system cleaning kit attaching to the intake manifold, it will definitely break the build up and work normally again, . So the good news is has nothing to do with valve train, but bad that I have to change gas tank though.

After this finding I'm %100 sure that's the problem. I will update if anything changes.

 

[vince6756]

Ok I finally got another fresh rebuilt head with stock valves springs and added GSC zero tick lifters with 272 DKS cams from FFWD connections. I haven't been able to drive the car because some exterior panels are getting painted so the car has seen a lot of idle time,. But every time the car sits, 1 or 2 rocker rollers will pop off. I bleed them, sat in clean oil for a week, and etc.... Now when I go to put the rockers back on the lifter(s) are rock hard also leaving the valves to sightly be open which won't turn over.

Once I bleed them again put the rockers back, she will fire up and run so smoothly. Great awesome, let the car run, and ran for a hour. Shut it off for about a hour and 20 mins, went to start it back up to put her to bed in the garage. Same thing again, W...T...H!!!!!!!

Can someone please enlighten me why this might be happening, there is only so many times I can put up with take the valve cover off!!!!!!

Did your car sound like total shit starting it?