Pulled the heads yesterday to send them out for porting. Installed the 918s less than 3 months ago whle I was putting in CC Pro Mag 1.85 roller rocker and CC Hi Tech Pushrods. Decided to remove the rockers, springs and valves since I'm having larger REV SS valves installed during the CNC. When I was packaging up the springs for shipment I pulled the retainer off of the spring and the first coil of the spring stuck to the retainer. I don't even have 1K miles on these springs yet and very little high RPM revving. I'm puzzled because we have been led to believe the Blue Stripe 918s had supposedly solved the breakage problem. I was lucky because it broke at the first coil wrap instead of the middle which would probably allowed the valve to drop. Anyone else have any broken Blue Stripe 918s? If you thinking about installing 918s in the near future be aware that the Blue Stripes can break. I hope this was just an isolated incident. If I break another one I probably won't be so lucky. I'm glad I decided I to have my heads done. I was driving around in a ticking time bomb and didn't even know it.

 

****! I just installed these on my patriot LS6 style heads. I read around on the net for a solid month looking for a blue stripe failure.. and you end up having one three days after I install my heads. Damn, I'll think about this every time I hammer on my car now. Hopefully this is an isolated incident.

Btw. what cam were you running with the 1.85 rockers?

 

I was thinking the same thing. I just installed them on my stock heads with TR230. If you used those rockers with bigger cam that might be the reason for the breaking.

 

Yeah, those 1.85 rockers will kick the lift numbers on up there.

 

Makes me kinda uneasy also. Just finished heat cycling mine and they have less than 200 miles on them with my new TR224. Hopefully they will hold up!

 

eallenbogs,
Weren't you using the comp 206/212 .565/.572? If that lift was with the 1.7 rockers.. going to a 1.85 changed it to .613/.622!! If that's the case.. I can't belive you only broke one of them.. let me know on the cam, I'm very interested in this.
Thanks
Scott

 

Yeah, I don't think with the cam's lift and the 1.85 rockers that these were the appropriate spring for your uses, hence it broke.

I would have no problems running a 918 spring on any car I drove as long as it suited the application.

 

Ditto on that^

 

lets not all get too excited. Just because one person posts about there blue stripe valve springs breaking, doesn't mean everyone's will now. I agree, 1.85 rockers are a little much with almost any decent size aftermarket cam. Also, depending what cam you have, and what lobes its ground on, if you have real steep ramp rates, its not recomended to go 1.85 rockers

 

My lift is 515/522 so the effective lift is 563/570. Comp said I could safely go as high as 585 by either buying a cam custom ground for the 1.85 lifters or by using one with less lift ground for stock 1.7 lifters.

 

Depends on the lobe design, if you received XER lobes, I'm not suprised and would not have recommended this particular cam/ rocker combination no matter wether I worked for Comp or any reputable speed shop. Changing out rockers is the number one reason why a spring will break because there is always the thought overlooked or simply flaw in the thought process. Just when it seems close it was downhill from the start. I've safely been running .591 lift on stock heads for ~9000 miles now utilizing the blue stripe 918s. Not to say I am right and you are wrong but just to again be wary or what will and will not work for your application or anyone's reading this.

 

Cool, thanks for clearing up the cam specs for me!

 

You should avoid Comp springs; no quality control - period!

 

i've read about several broken 977's as well, hmm...

 

It's more than just CC's quality control. Alot of it is due to improper usage of components for certain setups, etc. Read J-Rod's post regarding valve springs, it helps clear up a lot of why people break so many springs, mostly due to improper selection of components and a very heavy valvetrain.

 

Was it an XE or XE-R Cam?

 

I haven't. Where? Seen 987's and 978's break.

 

XE-R are the steep ramps, and the XE are the normal ones

 

Son of a motherless goat. I thought these beehive springs were good for up to .600" lift? Man, I sure hope for CC and the people who have these springs on their car that this isn't an indication of another "bad batch" of springs.

Edit: Eboggs, could this have anything to do with the boost you're running or does it not play a factor in this situation?