Before I give up and send my stuff of to the professionals I ordered up some parts and thought I'd share my findings. First off I'm not so sure that a 1.600 spring will even fit these heads. 1.550 might be the hot ticket here. After talking to the folks at PSI my conclusions were confirmed - the smaller the diameter spring the smaller "window" of spring pressure you have from seat to open. Anyway I;ll check more on the feasibility of the 1.600" spring after work tomorrow night.

This first picture is an Isky TI-92 (1.500" OD) retainer with an Isky super 7 +.050 lock. The height mic was just a few tics over 1.9300 with this setup. I still need more installed height to make this thing live, especially for street action. Also of note is that this is with .060 worth of shim stock under the rocker shaft.

This is the sweep pattern I came up with for .770 lift. Kind of a moot point without enough installed height!

A little more light showing the retainer clearance. I don't know if it was my mind playing tricks on me or what bus as the roller tip pattern was moved toward the center of the valve the rocker became noticeably easier to rock.

A picture of the steel Isky 275 retainer and a super 7 keeper. I also lost .020 of installed height with this retainer compared to the titanium setup (1.910"). I see an order to Delwest in my future!

This is a picture of .770 net lift with a 1.7 ratio rocker. More to come...

Interesting? Are those Jesel rockers?
What offset, and how much pushrod clearance with the 1.7:1 ratio?

I am going to take my heads and rockers to Dave Sarno at SCH Racing Heads and have them flowed and see how much longer valves would cost.
He did a good job repairing my B-1 b/s heads and got me a discount on the Manley valves. I also had him put a good valve job on my 440 source heads and flow them too.

If I go with the longer valves, we will just mull off the stands and use the max wedge type blocks like I dis to my other set of victor heads.

Rocker true ratio doesn't remain constant through the lift cycle. It starts out higher.

R.

I ordered the cam from Comp cams today. It's been about five years since I ordered the last "custom" cam, and seems prices went up on them? This one is a 23-000-11 core and the last one was a 23-000-9 core. Not sure what the difference is in the cores? Price was $411.79

That sounds right for the last billet cam core I had ground.

As far as the rockers in my pic they are Hughes .650 offset. I will be using .180 offset Isky lifters on the intakes so no problem there.

As far as valve length what are you shooting for? I did more measuring and it seems that the intake valves end up having .010 more installed height than the exhaust. This will further complicate things, at least for me. How does your stuff measure up?

Here are some Ferrea valve lengths and part numbers to chew on:

"Stock" Edlebrock valve OAL : 5.350" (installed height = 1.920*)
F1222P 2.20" head OAL 5.400" (installed height = 1.970*)
F2260P 2.20" head OAL 5.460" (installed height = 2.030*)

*installed height measured using Isky TI-92 retainer, +.050 super 7 lock, .045 spring seat*

Anyway, 2.030 installed height would allow for quite a few good spring choices if the geometry could be worked out. If you used a .060 spring cup that could bring the installed height to 2.015 and be in 2.00" spring territory.

Thoughts?

I also measured up the possibility of using a +.100 retainer or +.050 retainer/+.050 lock combination and it's a no-go. The valve tip is .055-.060 above the top of the retainer.