I just bolted the ET heads on the 390 and installed 2 pushrods and cranked the engine over twice. These are the marks on the valves... are they close enough to center, or should I measure and get slightly longer? (I only have these because they came with the head/rockers.


-Garrett

 

Pushrods won't change it.

Are you using a solid lifter? If not, that may be why it is skewed to the intake side. If you are using a solid lifter, try adding another 0.025" shim under the rocker and see how it looks.

 

the wipe pattern on the valve doesn't measure pushrod size with our rockers. One way to measure pushrod length is to get the length checker from comp (little less than $20) set the rockers to zero lash and find how many turns it takes to get the pushrod tight with the rocker.

Or there is another thread somewhere on this page where a guy had a pretty cool method about counting the number of wrench turns on the rocker and equating that to pushrod length

 

I am using ls7 lifters. Pushrods are 8.250" with etp heads

 

You can't check the wipe pattern by turning the motor over with the hydraulic lifters and valve springs in place. The wipe pattern will be wrong and towards the intake side (similar to what you now have).

Second, pushrod length won't alter the wipe pattern, only the height of the rocker fulcrum.

If the heads are already in place and the LS7 lifters are installed, use check springs and a dial indicator to check the wipe pattern as the first step in setting things up.