Found out I had the wrong valve spring cups too. I ordered the correct cups and the shim kit from summit this morning. The comp spring cups are a little thicker than the ones I have now.

I'm so aggravated.

 

This has really been a righteous documentary.
Thanks for sharing. Lots of valuable information imparted here.

CHEERS!

 

Thanks for midnite. I found out tonight the springs I have might not actually be 921's. I'm trying to verify that and the retainers are the correct ones too.

I also found out that I do not have enough retainer to seal clearance. I have .047 WITHOUT the seal. I still can't believe I didn't blow this thing up. I'm very lucky.

 

Here's a few pics of me checking the install height and the retainer to guide clearance.

This is the Proform height mic I'm using.


Installed on the head, showing a little over 1.81


Verifying the height mic w/ the caliper.


Checking the retainer to guide clearance. I have 1.070. Subtract the lift from that which is .600 and you get .047. That's without the seal!

 

Depending on how things work out I might end up going that route.

 

The Ti retainers have a bit more material on the underside (lock area) which
is what causes the seal interference. This is why I suggested the L-kit as the
tool steel retainers are also pretty light because there's so much less material
by virtue of a stronger/denser alloy. Hope you figure it out as there's probably
a few ponies to be had w/more stable valvetrain. If those are 921s your prior
open pressure was about 340ish....so I doubt the lifter was vaulting as your
dyno graph seemed steady, but the low seat pressure could have caused
seat bounce/surge which is less than ideal. This is from the catalogue::::
1.80.....123 1.45.....265
1.75.....143 1.40.....286
1.70.....164 1.35.....306
1.65.....184 1.30.....327
1.60.....204 1.25.....347
1.55.....225 1.20.....367
1.50.....245 1.15.....388

 

The retainers I have are .385 thick and the 754's are .32x That's .060 worth of seal clearance right there. I'm going to check the spring pressure on what I have today. I'm just aggravated that what I bought isn't what I thought it was.

As far as the Lunati Golds go I guess I'm kinda leary of springs, retainers, locks seats for 225 bucks. Maybe they are just an incredible deal.

 

I bought a set of spings that were very similar and love them. I bought them form a local shop, I cant remember the name. He said they were good springs and not the junk Patriot set. Just my .02

Awesome to see someone that wants to learn the measurments and proper engine assembly. Congrats to you!

 

Oh there it is. I couldnt remember the name of the spring set. My sig saved me. Vince Hi Performace Dual Spring Set.

 

Finally figured it out this evening. The springs are 921's. Which is the good news.

The retainers, seat locators and install height were wrong and I didn't have enough retainer to seal clearance.

I have the new seat locators and shim kit already. I have to pick up some new retainers. I'm going to shim these bitches up and throw the 7.350 pushrods back in and see what happens.

I think my valvetrain should be quieter now.

I have a set of titanium retainers for 1.30 OD springs if anyone needs them.



Props to Shane@Thunder Racing for figuring it out.

 

Glad to hear and thank goodness this didn't end catastrophically !!!!!

 

hey lilj, great thread! i cant believe i havn't noticed it until now......i lurk through tons of threads lol...... your firehawk is sick! the shop you work at is pretty bad *** aswell......just had to say


now i see why you caught my valve spring install height, its good to see that it didnt destroy anything but some seals....... i dont know if i woulda had this issue because of my baby cam but thanks again for pointing it out to me and saving me the trouble/money of finding out.

also glad to read that you got everything figured out. how big of a shot are you planning on given her?

 

I know man me too. I do appreciate all the input you have given.

Thanks! I'm glad I could help someone out. There have been a lot of people that have helped me in the past. If I ever get the bottle hooked up I want to spray probably 125. Could you imagine what would have happened on a 125 hit with the valvetrain setup like it was?



I talked to the machine shop that setup my heads and the didn't have much to say. I was pissed but there wasn't much I could do about it.

 

yeah that woulda been really sad...it would of been a lot of work gone to waste.

IMO...best thing you could do about the machine shop is to just let other people know about your experience with them.

i hope you get it up and running soon. i know how it feels to have your car down lol. (i dont even remember what its like too have a car)

 

Thought I would update this thread. I have this thread and another in the dyno section.

I've had problems with the car running really rich, hunts idle and sometimes die. It runs so rich my wife can't stand to ride in it and honestly its starting to get to me too. I don't drive it hardly at all because I'm afraid I'm going to wash the rings out.

I had this problem last year and found I had an exhaust leak at the collector. Fixed the leak and replaced the O2's. Car ran fantastic. Car was running bad when I parked it for the valvetrain issues. When I started driving it again I found the collector was leaking again. Replaced it again and the 02's but its still running like crap. I swear its getting worse.

I smoked the exhaust and intake with a smoke machine and found no leaks.
I could smell raw fuel whenever I pulled the plugs out. The porcelain was white but smelled of gas really strong. The car doesn't smoke at all but does use IMO quite a bit of oil.

I am happy to say I don't have any oil on the plugs like I did before I fixed the valvetrain setup. I'm happy I was able to fix something.

I did a dry compression test tonight. I let the car run for a few minutes to get some heat in it and splash some oil on the rings.
1: 220 2: 215
3: 220 4: 215
5: 220 6: 215
7: 220 8: 215

I know I probably need to do a leakdown test. I don't know if its possible to have the high of compression and a significant leak down problem.

I cleaned the MAF, checked the IAC counts, TPS voltage and 02's. Everything seems to be fine. This thing is using a ridiculous amount of fuel. I'm getting about 9mpg right now. When I fixed the exhaust leaks and replaced the 02's last year is went up to 15-16 but it has went to **** again.

I'm starting to run out of things to check. I'm starting to think it's in the tune. I talked to my tuner and he said that if I had an exhaust leak when it was tuned, he probably added more fuel than it needed not knowing the exhaust was leaking.

I just want to drive the thing this year. That's all. I don't know why it's too much to ask.

 

I hadn't updated this thread in a long time because I didn't have anything good to report. After getting the valvetrain mess figured out I drove the car some but it still needs to be retuned.

Then the clutch went out. It sat for several months. Installed a Monster stage 2 w/ 28lb flywheel today. All I can say is WOW. There was something wrong with the 3.5 from the beginning but the car was down so much for something I just dealt with it. The clutch was slipping and burned itself and everything up.

It squealed, was grabby, inconsistent pedal pressure and so on. I put the stage 2 in today, bled the clutch and called it a day. Pedal pressure is like stock. Smooth engagement. The best part is; I had a vibration that started about 2500 rpm and never went away. I thought it was the poly mounts or the poly trans mount. Thought maybe the U/D puller was bad. It was the clutch assembly.

It's a completely different car now. It's actually enjoyable to drive. After the 500 miles for break in I am going to have it dyno tuned again. With a good clutch, my valve train setup properly and bigger injectors I hope to be closer to 450. We will see.

 

I have about 800 miles on the Monster 2 and still love it. I finally beat on it a few days ago and was super happy with it.

It's amazing how much better it runs when the clutch isn't slipping and the valves aren't floating. The car is WAY faster than it was after I had it dyno'd where it putout 430hp/420ft lbs. I'm anxious to see what it puts out now.

They salted the roads today so the car will be off the road till spring. I haven't done anything to the car except drive it which has been great. This whole process has been such a pain in the *** it's been unreal. I didn't even have some crazy combo but such is life.

I finally got my catch can hooked. I'm happy with the way it looks.




For the PCV valve I took two valves, cut the guts out of one and joined them together using thick wall heat shrink tubing. I like this much better than having hose clamps everywhere.I will paint it black this winter so it doesn't stand out so much.


I'm going with Unleashed to retune the car in the spring. They are closer to me and have read great things about them. After talking to Brenton he suggested I ditch the SLP MAF and go with a GM 85mm MAF. He also suggested going with bigger injectors as mine are around 90% duty cycle.

Once the temp gets below 50 degrees outside my gas mileage goes to ****. Right now I'm getting about 15mpg on the highway. That's at 60mph in 6th@1500 rpms. That sucks. I know the car is using way too much fuel.

The plans for the winter are to repaint the hood, rear bumper and do a full paint correction on it. The paint is horrible shape right now. It's embarrassing.

I am also seriously considering degreeing the cam again. When I did it orginally the ICL was off by almost four degrees. After my dyno results it was suggested to move it back to dot to dot which I did. After finding out I had valve float and a slipping clutch I want to revisit the ICL issue.

Since the car is going to be retuned in the spring I have seriously considered going with a different cam but with no good dyno numbers or track times I don't know if I will. I've considered a Cam Motion grind but haven't decided if it would worth the cost for gains in performance. Any thoughts on that?

I hope everyone has a great Holiday.

Here's a pic of my 89 T/A. I did a full correction on it last month which you can't really tell because it's overcast today.

 

Car looks damn good!

 

Thank you. It took a while to do. Looking forward to doing business with you. It's been good talking to you.

 

Car looks great man....long road but glad you're sorting out the difficulties.
Before ditching the cam; at least get that thing retuned by that new guy as
I don't think that original tune was EVER right. Your mileage is horrible and it
really shouldn't be. At least track it once or twice after the retune in spring so
you have a guage to measure from....ET/MPH/etc.....then perhaps try the
Cam Motion bump stick you're pondering