Andy, where your clearance checks made with checking springs or the ones your going to run? If with checking springs you can expect .035 to .045 more clearance with the regular springs depending on how stout the valve train is and how much everything deflects.

My jesel rockers have a ball end on the rocker side. The ball end is smaller then the lifter side of the pushrod. Perhaps you may need to change the adjusters to the ones that use the other type of pushrod?

it looks to me like the pushrod cup is for an adjuster screw thats bigger than whats on that rocker arm.
the adjuster looks like it probably has a 5/16 ball and, and the pushrod looks like its designed for a 3/8 ball.

Yep, you're close. Actually it turns out that the Jesel adjuster is 0.281 diameter (9/32) and I ordered pushrods with a 5/16 cup size.

Smith Bros doesn't stock a 9/32 cup for the 7/16 pushrod that doesn't have an oiling hole so they are going to make me up some custom ends.

Jesel has the correct pushrod ends but their pushrods cost $40 each and $640 for a set of pushrods that I'll only use once was a little hard to justify.

Why didn't you get the adjusters with the cups and use a ball end on the pushrod?

This is what they sent me, I didn't special order the ball end adjusters or anything.

Jesel recommends the ball end adjusters. They say they have less friction. I haven't seen their test data but I don't have any problem with their claim. Besides, I kind of prefer cups on the top of the pushrods when using splash oiling. For a pushrod oiled combo then the ball/ball pushrod would probably be the best design but I'm using spray bars. It just seems that an face up cup will have a better chance of catching and holding some oil in it that an upside down cup.

I got a set of Jesel pushrods today. They are super nice pushrods. Dual taper, .40 to 7/16 and back to 0.40. They also have the correct ends on them to work with the Jesel adjusters. Only problem with them is that they cost $42.75 each or $684 per set!

Smith Bros is doing a custom end for this application and they'll cost a lot less. So in a couple of weeks I'll have some new pics to post and there will be another choice for people.

I called Manton and it sounds like they have an end that will work with these rocker arms also.

I don't know the answer to that since I don't have access to a Spintron. I talked to a few different sources and they recommended with 900 lbs open spring pressure to run a thick wall 7/16 pushrod.

The Smith Bros pushrods are probably in the $20 each range so they aren't too expensive. They are a straight wall 7/16 pushrod with a .120 wall.

You're correct on the expense. I've spent about $4000 to go from the flat tappet MM305 to this roller cam and that is with me doing a bunch of the machine work myself. It hasn't all been required though, I'm trying some new stuff out so I consider it more R&D than anything else.

Thank you for posting info and pics, some really good work here.

i know its too late to go back now, but the test i would have liked to see(its easy to want stuff when you're spending someone elses money), would have been a roller cam swap similar to what the MM305 cam was, using the same basic valvetrain you used in that test.....then step up to the big dollar stuff like you have now, to show how much power you're getting for the added expense of the high lift cams, and the associated parts required to run them with any kind of reliability.

in any case.....i'll be interested in hearing the dyno results with the new combo.

is this next test going to have the new oil pan on it right away, or will that be a seperate test?

Yeah it is probably possible to do a low buck roller cam setup with Isky nodular rocker arms and old Chrysler triples or something like that and have it make almost as much power as a high dollar setup. I agree it would be kind of cool to do that type of article where you show some good power results with a well chosen selection of "cheap" parts.

But I had an interest in sorting out the Jesel stuff so I went this way with it. I might do a low lift vs. high lift comparison. I also have the option now of changing the rocker arm ratio pretty easily so I might try some 1.50 vs. 1.70 on the exhaust arm to see what happens there.

I'll put it together with the new deep dyno pan and run it that way. I might play around with the pan at some future time but right now I'm mostly interested to see how it will run with the big cam and the 1.70 rocker arms. I don't know if the pan makes any power difference or not. Pan testing is kind of messy.

well, i didnt mean anything that extreme in terms of low buck.
more along the lines of what i see the majority of guys running, and similar to what i was running when i had the roller in my old 448.

i thought you already had the Racer Brown rockers on this motor for the previous tests, so what i was thinking was more like just swap the cam/lifters/springs/distributor gear, and use a cam with a similar profile to the MM305, and just see what the roller set up was worth.

then go to the big dollar set-up like what you did.

as for the pan.....no telling what its worth without testing, but dont kid yourself....ive seen pretty substantial gains(15-20hp at higher rpms) by using pans that provide better oil control.
ive also seen high doller hi-tech pans not work that well at all.

changing the pan on the dyno isnt all that fun....but its not really that bad either.

Andy, great work. Great documenting, also. My buddy and I had a long phone meeting with Mike @ Primedia today, about working with MM mag and our wires. There was a lot of interest at the Indy show last weekend with out race wires, and there will be dyno tests coming up shortly. Would you be interested in using the wires we sent you for the upcoming dyno pulls ?? If so, do you have everything you need ?? Please let me know, as you seem very resourceful.. .

I got a new set of Smith Bros pushrods today. These don't cost nearly as much as the Jesel pushrods but should work just fine. They are 7/16 x 0.120 wall and the end is tapered down to 3/8 and there is a 9/64 cup end. These are the pushrods I'll run in the motor.

The motor is almost back together. I just need to double check pushrod clearance and then install the big mondo valve springs and we're ready to light it off.

Andy, how much will those pushrods end up costing?

looks like the did a nice job with them.

I think the Smith Bros pushrods are about $18 each but I don't know for sure. They had to make a special end for me that wasn't a catalog item. The pushrods with the catalog ends cost $16 each so I'm just guessing that these new ends will be a little more expensive.