Well she started and runs
To me, it looks almost as if the pushrod length was determined with the lifter not quite on the base circle. I listened to your car run in the outside the hood video, and that sounds like lash. Then your third video sort of confirms it.
You could take an educated guess this way... slide a feeler under the rocker tip and figure out how much lash you got. Remember that lash won't exactly translate, so divid your lash by 1.7 to get the preload equivalent. To make the math easy, say you have 0.017" lash, then a 0.010" longer pushrod will get you to zero. Then another .050 for the actual lifter preload, and you'll be at 7.060".
At that, even if you ran 7.075", your preload would only be 0.065, but then you gain .010 from thermal expansion, so you're back to 0.055" warm preload, and likely very happy.
Last edited by 02sunsetorangeZ; Mar 24, 2017 at 11:02 PM.
The Best V8 Stories One Small Block at Time
cut the head off of a screw the size you threaded hole with, some nuts to lock it with,
I extended some wire out of the wire welder, tacked it on for traction and hold it still, it
is tight on these heads where you need to be when spinning up to zero lash. Zero dollars.
And strong enough to spin cam around, all torqued down. Turn nut to lock it in place,
remove rocker arm, measure push rod, add preload, Done
I started mine yesterday and it sounds awesome! Valve train is WAY quieter than expected.. no noise on initial start up at all due to priming the oil pump. The tuner noticed it was very snappy compared to his set up that doesn't have the .040 gaskets and has different heads. I'll try to get a video today and post it!
Here is the link to my videos and thread. I bet it sounds pretty familiar to you since our builds are pretty close!










