Head and valve train issues, Help! Suggestions?

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Thanks for the replies, I will definately measure them up before I go buy more parts.

These rockers are held down with the steel retainers, and they still don't line up.

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Crane ductile iron rockers have probally been made by several different vendors over the years I have had Isky, Cranes and Erson ductile iron orkers that fit correctly out of the boxes and some that didn't fit with the stock holdowns Some times you need to trim the tabs off of the stock hold downs and sometimes you have to add spacers between then and the rockers to get the rockers aligned properly, take your time and get them right You can buy small valve spring shims, .015, .030 and in .060 that work great on the rocker shafts and rocker arms as spacers I've spent many afternoons doing rocker arm spacing, grinding and cussing them Welcome to the world of custom engine building Make sure and check your pushrod to head clearances, especially on the intake pushrods before final assmbling also I am getting ready to go out in my shop and remove a Eddy RPM head from my newest motor so I can grind some out of one intake walls due to one pushrod rubbing, this is with a set of Harland Sharp 1.6 ratio rocker assemblys on the same heads that I have ran on another motor Lifter boss alignement isn't exactly the same on every Mopar 400 block

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After reading the replies, I can see I misunderstood the alignment problem,... I was thinking "not enough reach from the rocker" to the valve stem, not "laterally". My bad.

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One other question... are you SURE you have B engine
rockers... I had this problem on a A engine... Crane
had them labeled WRONG and they were B-engine rockers
that I put on my A-engine... they sorta fit but were
long on the tip

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Is the misalignment on the valve left to right (follows the shaft) or is it front to back (intake to exhaust)? I am thinking from your comment of "on the edge of the valve", that you are talking front to back. If that is the case then you can try shimming the shaft. The decision to shim or not to shim is a debate within itself, but if you will add shim to the shaft it will begin to move the tip of rocker toward the center of the valve. You want as little movement across the valve as you can. You ideally want the rocker tip in the middle of the valve at mid lift of the valve. I just finished mocking up some new rockers and here are some pictures of the rockers at zero, mid and full lift (go clockwise).

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We used the 3/8 pushrods and yes we clearanced the head before we installed them. I really appreciate all the help guys as this is my first serious engine build.

If I find that there is a problem with the heads that is not easily fixed, what would you suggest for a replacement head, Indy, Eddy, ?, I know there are alot of options, but I would like to get something with excellent performance out of the box with room to expand later and not have to change alot of my existing setup. For example, I have super comp headers and I would like to not have to replace them due to getting raised port heads.

Thanks again.

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Two options on fixing the problem, buy a better set of rockers, Harland Sharps, T&D , send yours to RAS for fixing or whatever you decide to do. If you switch heads you may have the same problem still and have to switch rockers also The better heads will make more power on your motor, no matter which heads you switch to, Eddy RPM, Eddy Victors, Eddy Super Victors, CNC ported Eddy RPM, or Indy M.W. EZ heads. I think all of those heads will work with the headers you have now, maybe not If you decide to go to a Max wedge intake port size you will also need a intake manifold to match the heads, if never ends I have started using rockers with 1.6 or 1.65 ratio instead of the stock 1.5 ratio. That is worth some power as the motor thinks it has a bigger cam than it does with the stock ratio Try checking the ratio on your rockers now, set the lash at zero with a solid lifter and then rotate the motor through the complete cycle, put a dial indicator on the retainer(make sure and align the indicator stem exactly with the valve stem) and check the net lift at the retainer If the cam has .400 lobe lift then it should have(1.5x.400 =.600) .600 lift at the retainer, if it has more then the ratio is bigger, if less then it is less. I have seen stock Mopar 1.52 ratio ductile iron rockers that are 1.42 ratio and some have been as much as 1.58 ratio, on the same 426 street hemi motor It pays to know what you have on all race parts

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Mine were back further than that, what you see in the above pictures includes a .030 shim under the shaft. I tried up to .045, but the .030 seem to provide a little less scrub.

You can get a better idea by trying to capture the pattern on the valve tip. I sometimes color the end of the valve with a marker to see the pattern but often times it will not show a good pattern because the check springs do not provide enough tension. I usually go and get a check that has the duplicate behind it, cut off a portion of it and use that, just be sure to run around the edges of the valve with a pencil while the paper is on the valve tip so that you can see where your pattern is in relation to perimeter of the circle (valve tip).

Here is a picture without any shims.

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