Hey guys. I Just finished buttoning up the motor on my OT car, and am having an issue. It's a 1972 Dodge 360 block, .030 over, 10:1 pistons, edelbrock heads, cam, and intake. Pretty mild street mill that ran great until an oiling problem ruined the bottom-end. It went out for align honing, crank turning, etc, and is all together and back in the car. I lit it up today, and it sounds scary. Like the lifters are all bad and won't pump up. It sits and idles fine (maybe a little miss), runs at 185 degrees, shows 70lbs. of oil pressure, and every cylinder tests at exactly 180lbs. I know that hydraulic lifters will rattle a bit on startup, but I ran the car today for about 8 minutes and the sound never went away. Is the cam roasted? What do I do next? I'm skeered of starting it again because it sounds like it's coming apart-- And I just dropped a grand into machine work, not to metion the replacement costs of the heads HALP!
Did you adjust the rocker arm/pushrod/lifters?.I.E. Valve lash or clearance?.Did you pre lube the lifters before installing?.Could be many different things. Good luck.
What lakes said... check and make sure the rocker arms aren't lose. It's late to do this now, but with the valve covers off and an electric drill spinning the oil pump, make sure oil is coming out of the pushrods (pre-oiling prior to initial start-up). -Brad
Did you use one of the piece of shit purple shaft cams from mopar perfomance? What is the timing set at, did you degree the cam, and does it start hard?
What do you have for rocker arms? I'm pretty sure these heads are meant to be used with adjustable rockers only.
1- No adjustment. This is an hydraulic setup. 2- I pre-oiled, both with a pump-drive shaft, and spun the motor with the starter. Plenty of oil visible at the rocker assembly. 3- Edelbrock cam. Timing is at 6 deg btdc, cam was installed straight up per timing marks, and the engine lights right away. 4- As far as I know, these heads can be used with the stock valvetrain. It ran perfect before the "Big Bang". 5- When I removed the lifters on disassembly, everything was tight and smooth. No scuffs at all on the lifters. Mistakes I made: I didn't submerge the lifters in oil before re-installing them. Just shot them with plenty of assembly lube. Problem? The cam/lifters had maybe 100 miles on them before. It's possible I mixed-up the lifter to lobe order. Would there have been enough previous wear for this to matter, and would this have wiped the cam immediately on startup? Thanks for the quick responses guys. I wanna drive my car...
Was gonna ask if the cam bearings are in right, but if you saw oil out of every pushrod........galley plug?..........Hmmmmm.......
1- No adjustment. This is an hydraulic setup. There should still be some sort of adjustment for these? are the arms loose? Curious?
Just a thought, maybe not much of one. There are adjustment procedures on SBM valves. BUT, is has to be done with a valve grind. It is the valve stem height. From the sounds of it the might be too short. Problem is the only way to tell is to tear down the heads and check every valve. Now I am not familiar with the Edelbrock heads. They could be fine, I just know factory heads. Like I said just a thought, things like this drive me nuts.
Thanks guys. I have an idea-- I'll get over to the shop tonight and see if I can't figure it out. I'll post when I get home.
Another thought- the rocker arm shafts have to be "clocked" on a small mopar. These motors oil the top end through passages in the head out to the shafts, out to the rockers. could it be that the rocker shafts got spun 180 degrees when you reinstalled them? I can't tell you off the top of my head how the marks on the shafts should be orientated, but they do only go one way. I'll slip out to my shop and take a look at my spare set.
Just got back in. There is a notch on each shaft that when installed has to be pointing down. It would point down at the rear on the pass. head and down at the front on the drivers side. The only other thing I can think of is if the rocker shafts themselves have galled. I'm assuming that your using the stock stamped steel rockers. If so they should have no free play or lash when installed. They should have a small amount of pre- load on the lifters themselves. You didn't upgrade to some M/P adjustable or 273 adjustable rockers and reuse your old pushrods? They take a different end. Sorry don't want to question your abilities, just throwing out a bunch of ideas. I've been running the same set up for about 300000 mi.
Sounds like the valves are adjusted too tight. I typically try to get the valve adjustment close on a fresh motor and then fine tune the valve lash at idle. Pull the valve covers and do two cylinders at a time. That way you will not get too much oil on the exhaust. Turn it off, let the oil drain out of the head and then do the next two cylinders. You can always use a pair of cut-away valve covers if you have an extra set.
Hows the setup work for you? I really liked the way this worked. No monster, but really smooth, workable power. Good call on the rocker shafts, but they are installed correctly. The Ed's heads even have little areas in the towers milled away to help oil drain where the notches should go. These are stock stamped rockers, shafts and pushrods. Something keeps telling me this is a timing issue-- Either cam, or ignition. It really is making an ungodly rattle! I have my boys with me today and can't get over to the shop until tonight when my wife gets home from work. Ug.
Mine has been going strong for about 100000 of those miles set up this way. Love it! The only differences are cam and roller rockers. I went with comp cams on both. That and a Tremac five speed stuffed in my '48 Plymouth have hauled me to just about every square inch of the U.S. in the last five years! been super reliable and pretty damn quick too. It is starting to get alittle long in the tooth though, so soon I'll be making some changes. New short block and single turbo are in the works.Good luck on solving your problems,I'm looking forward to the out come. If I can be of any other help feel free to give me a P.M.
Any chance you got something down the intake and it's hammering around inside a cylinder. I had a motor do the same thing after I swapped heads. I pulled the head off the side that was rattling and found what looked like a piece of cotter pin that might have flown from the next bay and landed in the intake when the carb was off....y'never know!
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