Help lining up pushrods and guideplates on 21* heads.
Thread Starter
12 Second Club
Joined: Jun 2011
Posts: 174
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From: Meadville, PA
Help lining up pushrods and guideplates on 21* heads. So I'm running the new 21* Trickflow heads. The valves on these heads are spaced slightly farther apart than a stock head. My pushrods come out from the lifter to through the guideplate notches and to the rocker arms at an angle, thus slightly turning the rocker arm so that with each pair of rocker arms, they are not parallel with each other. They are sort of like this:
/ \ (Exaggerated). The pushrod also rubs on the guide plates. It appears a little material needs shaved off the guide plates.
Anyone else running these heads ever have this problem?
Thanks in advance for the help.
/ \ (Exaggerated). The pushrod also rubs on the guide plates. It appears a little material needs shaved off the guide plates.
Anyone else running these heads ever have this problem?
Thanks in advance for the help.
TECH Veteran
Joined: Dec 2008
Posts: 4,147
Likes: 62
From: Little Rock, AR
If the valves are spaced farther apart and the pushrod location is the same as stock, then they won't look like stock or be that close to parallel. You might want to consider some adjustable guideplates.
Thread Starter
12 Second Club
Joined: Jun 2011
Posts: 174
Likes: 0
From: Meadville, PA
I just wanted to make sure having the rocker arms off-parallel with each other wouldn't hurt anything. Could I make slight alterations to my guideplates that Lloyd put on my heads and be ok?
Joined: May 2004
Posts: 1,593
Likes: 267
From: Halfway back on the Highway to Hell...again!
I went through this with stock heads. you need adjustable guideplates. Do each rocker individually, lock the stud down and keep each rocker in the same spot. Even after I set all my rocker studs/guide plates, if I were to relocatesome of the rocker to a different valve, the alignment was off.
If the PR is popping out of the lifter, then your guideplate isn't deep enough. I also had this issue with the Iskys. I had to cut them down inside. I used the set of fixed plates to measure off of for depth. Make sure to loctite the studs with high strength locker. It took me about 2 hrs do do all this with the engine on a stand. If you're gonna attempt this in car, well, more power to ya
If the PR is popping out of the lifter, then your guideplate isn't deep enough. I also had this issue with the Iskys. I had to cut them down inside. I used the set of fixed plates to measure off of for depth. Make sure to loctite the studs with high strength locker. It took me about 2 hrs do do all this with the engine on a stand. If you're gonna attempt this in car, well, more power to ya
If you don't get the pushrods aligned correctly you will put uneven pressure on the rocker which will then transfer to the roller on the rocker and the valve tip and they'll be fubar in no time.
