Originally Posted By fastmark
Thanks for all the advice. The problem I’m trying to resolve right now is with a customers car. She came to me with this problem statement, “ it just does not run right after this overhaul” problem. I have uncovered problems from the last three shops that she had work on it, plus the shop that patched it together to sell at the auction she bought it from. It’s a mess. I’m down to the motor now. My buds shop did the machine work and assembled the short block. Lucky for her, he came to me years ago looking for a crank and at least I sold her a four speed crank. The heads or block have been milled so much, the lifters have about .120 preload at rest. I’m sure it’s running with valves slightly open. They installed the heads and never checked preload. The shafts were still dirty and two rockers were swapped sides. It had very little power on the test drive. A stock intake fits so I’m wondering if they removed the dowel pins in the head to drop heads enough for the intake to fit. These guys were Chevy guys who disrespect mopars and don’t want to learn. The button fell out of the third member and ruined the axle bearing on one side. It had enough play in the axle for the backing plate to rub the drum. They just spaced the drum with washers! I guess people like this keep my busy!




Most likely the that .120 preload is coming from the stem height being too tall, rather than that much surfacing being done. The easiest fix for that is shorter pushrods. The correct way to do it is pull the heads and get the stem height in spec. If you go the shorter pushrod route you will still have geometry issues.


Just because you think it won't make it true. Horsepower is KING. To dispute this is stupid. C. Alston