Had a customer bring some Victors that needed a little valvetrain work. His engine builder wasn't getting anywhere by talking to the rocker manufacturer, and he remembered talking to me at Carlisle about this stuff. Easy fix, right? Uhhhh, NOT!

A picture is worth a thousand words, they say. Here are several.

Uh Oh!

Ok, I'll just make up a kit and get it corrected, right? Nope, the engine builder would rather have stands made. Additionally, T&D uses a .750" shaft, so with the .120" offset needed to get the roller where it needs to be, elongating the holes in the shaft would weaken it too much. This is going to suck!

Alright, throw it in the mill and start cutting off the stands, fill the bolt holes, weld, re-drill and tap, heli-coil, cut a keyway, and add additional support screws for the three center stands. Then grab some 6061T6-511 bar and start making new stands.

Ok, get it all together and, CRAP! The roller is too far inboard. It would run, but I don't like it. Neither does the engine builder. Time to make another set of stands.

A better pic of the roller placement.

Is the 1.7 ratio a contributing factor??
Or T&D's design?

Joe

So on this set of heads how far did you move
the shaft(in,out, up,down)

The sweep across the valve was right where it was supposed to be for a .718" net lift roller cam. The offset just needed an adjustment.

It has nothing to do with the rocker design or ratio. It is the location of the fulcrum centerline, aka. shaft centerline, that determines the proper geometry. Every engine will need a specific location for the shaft for its combination. The factory location will only be correct for a factory spec engine. Change anything, and it will need to change also.

Final numbers were .290" up, and .085" offset.

Good to see you back again, Mike! I hope you're doing well!

Here is a completed head. There is plenty of clearance for the spring and retainer. Even though it looks close from a profile shot, you can't see the relief in the rocker that would allow another .100" in spring diameter.

More

Not my Victors, but I'm still interested in this thread.

Is that combination going to need valve cover spacers now?

Where did you get studs that long?

He has pretty tall fabbed valve covers, so I doubt it. The real problem is side clearance. Edelbrock raised the rail on these heads, but they went straight up instead of on the incline of the valve, and that crowds the tail end of the rocker. You definitely couldn't use a cast cover.

Good luck getting a spring pressure measuring tool in there!

On my SB stuff I have to use reverse lip valve
covers and still have to notch the lip of the
cover and the gasket to clear

B3RE,

Love your threads and you did some work for a buddy in Tucson. My question would be wouldn't a shorter valve help the situation out? I'm sure the valve lift has something to do with the length of valve that can be used? Just curious. thx matt

Very nice work Mike!
Seems like I remember a certain genius member calling your product "snake oil" and saying that your attention to detail on rocker geometry offers no benefit, I wonder what his view would be on this specific application.

Oh, don't forget to drill & tap the center stud location to accept the longer studs like in the #2 & #4 shaft hold-down positions. There have been a number of center pedestal cracking reports on here, and I wouldn't run a Victor head w/o this mod now.