keep wearing out my T&D rockers

Like the title says, I keep wearing them out. I get maybe 4000 miles out of them. all on the street. Indy sr heads. solid roller .650" 272 276@.050. I use pac 1225 springs. these are also 1.6 rocker arms.

I do restrict the oil to the heads. I use a .040"
one on each head. Wondering if I should just remove them, and not use any at all.

The wear is not the shaft or the bearings. I think it is the aluminum bore of the rocker itself. They hold lash really well, but I can grab the rocker and twist it and get a lot of play. needles to say, they are loud and clacky. I use VR 1 20/50 for oil.

I just ordered a new set. Was thinking if a 1.5 might hold up a little better on the street. thoughts???

If its an option moving over to Hardlan Sharp may not be a bad idea. Lifetime warranty and free inspections.

Shaft or individuals
edit
cam is very close to what you have..never wore out a rocker
yet... I think you are side loading them or they are twisting

Are the heads oiled full time or only when the cam holes line up?
With restrictors I would think you want full time oiling.

Have you talked with T&D about those spring loads and long term street duty?

IMO, it's way more spring than I'd run on a motor that sees primarily(or only) street use.

Smoother cam lobes, less spring pressure...... Things just last longer.

SR heads are full time oiling.

You don't want to remove the restrictor. You may want to increase the size though. We run .046 restrictors in the 440-1's on our race engine. You may need to go a little larger than that if the engine is mostly street driven though.

T&D will rebuild the set of rockers for 100$ last time I talked to them. Very good customer service for sure, call them...

As Dwayne says you might consider changing the cam lobe to something slower and then dropping the spring pressure down a bunch. If you get the correct lobe in there you might not even notice much of a difference in power.

IF you are running on the street, i fail to see why you would restrict the oil to the rockers. MORE is better. I know others will say to restrict it. BUT if you have enough for the mains and rods, then keep the heads well oiled. I found my springs lived a lot longer too.
Just my 2 Cents worth from another old school racer.

INDY SR heads use the external oil feed fed from the back of the block - you have too run a restrictor or you will pump way to much oil up top - for the street I would use the 0.060 pill in the lines.

I don't see how I could be side loading them. It's a zero offset exhaust rocker. And the intake is only .250 offset.

I talked with Shelton over at T&D. They can rebuild them only if the rocker body bores are not wore out. He thinks that's what's wrong with mine so there are no rebuilding them.

On one of my Motors I use the jesel paired rocker arms. I use more spring and .800 inch lift, streetcar also. I bet I've had the same rockers since the late 90s. And those are only spray bar oiled...😕

Send t&d the set let them look them over see what's going on..

Sounds like instead of continuing to have the same part fail, get Jesels for this motor too.
Had a set of Jesel sportsman series on a 700 lift roller for 8 years with nary a problem, street driven too. New owner has now been running them 6 or 7 years with zero issues.
For something with a big roller i wouldnt use anything but Jesel

My thought, too. I'd want to know WHY they're experiencing that level of wear (excessive spring loads, insufficient lubrication, ???).

If the bores in the bodies are getting distorted, it isn't "wear"...... It's fatigue.

Push the bearings out and measure the body. Mine were all with-in .0005".
Doug

I'm going to send them a set back and see what they say. Would going from 1.6 to 1.5 take a lot of load off of the rocker arm fulcrum?

These motors that keep wearing out the rocker arms, all have solid roller cams. I used the Indy R1 cam. I think that is already a fast lobe maybe I'm overdoing it with a 1.6 ratio....

So your Jesel rockers were paired shafts and the T&D are a single shaft correct? Huge difference between the two.

This is why I like to use Comp Ultra Pro Magnum rockers on street cars with big boy valve springs.

Those look interesting and they say they can handle up to 850 pounds of open pressure.....

I have about 2000 miles on my T&D rockers, ran them on the MW victors with the PAC1325 springs, and currently with the stiffer 1326 springs. Not using any oil restrictors to the heads on mine?
I haven't had issues (with the rocker arms) so far, just the Edelbrock rocker stands.

if the rocker body bores are not wore out

660 bronze insert

I don't know which ones, but some Comp Rocker Arms are made by T&D.

This is the way to go if it were up to me. I'd also check the OD of the shaft in multiple areas. Something is amiss!

Just was thinking, check that the reduced diameter of the hold down studs is aligned with the center of the T&D rocker shafts. The T&D shafts are a smaller OD, with thick walls, and a regular bolt or stud (not reduced at the shaft center location) could block oil flow through the shaft.

Right, if the special stud from T&D is not being used then oil flow could be a concern on the BBM.

The OP says the bearings and shafts are not worn....... So it shouldn't be an oil supply problem.
That being said, I usually run a .060 restrictor with Indy heads that are externally full time oiled.

From what I'm reading, it sounds like the bearing races are loose in the bodies.
To me, that's an indication the bores in the rocker bodies have distorted.

So far, no one who has posted has run as many miles on these rockers as the OP with the same kind of spring loads he has.

So, this is not the first set to have this problem?

I don't know how aggressive the Indy R1 lobes are, but maybe they're not really "street friendly" and - in conjunction with those stiff springs - you're simply wearing parts out that fast wracking up miles on the street.

Probably a harmonic issue. Something about the combination of springs, pushrod, rocker arms and lobe and the RPM. Something as simple as changing to a stiffer pushrod might solve it but without spintron time you won't know for sure. More likely you can solve it by going with a less aggressive cam lobe and taking some spring pressure out of it.

I think the Indy R1 is a Comp grind but it has been a few years since I looked at one. If it uses Comp lobes then you could talk to Comp tech line and ask about spring pressures. The guys at T&D also might have some ideas. What pushrods are you running? If they aren't 7/16 or 1/2 inch then you might want to try that first.

go to harland sharp and dont look back,leave the t&d for drag engines,i seen a while back someone had probloms with t&d rockers,you never hear of anyone having problems with harland sharp,they might not require the restrictors on t&d,does the t&d has lash caps,i know mine on the indy 440-1 has them,on the indy sr heads i have i use harland sharps

Another question I have is...... What is the actual installed height of the springs?
If someone set the springs up to the now popular .050-.080 from coil bind at full lift, that would have the installed height pretty short for the 1225 spring and only .650-.670 lift.
Set up in that scenario, the springs could be well over 300lbs closed.

Also, I've used PAC 1225's a number of times, and they are usually several pounds stiffer than spec as they come ootb.