I have to admit there seemed to be a lot more oil to clean up then I would have thought. Even found a little around the lip of my distributor cap.

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2006 Jeep Commander
2013 Chrysler 200

1964 Valiant 4 Door
1965 Plymouth Barracuda
1967 Chevy Camaro

Okay another question on this same line. I have been researching valve lash online and found a few sites. One of the magazine sites suggested that if you tighten your lash IE from .015 to .014 that I could increase my top end horsepower and if I went to .016 I could increase my bottom end torque. Is this true and how do our engines take to something like this?

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2006 Jeep Commander
2013 Chrysler 200

1964 Valiant 4 Door
1965 Plymouth Barracuda
1967 Chevy Camaro

Keep in mind horse power is the rate of torque delivery, like watts, time is a component. What one needs to look for is the shape of an engine’s torque curve. Torque is what gets the work done; horse power is how fast that work gets done.

If you have a big lumpy cam, that is, a cam profile that has a lot of overlap between intake and exhaust events, loosening lash reduces overlap. In other words by increasing the gap between rocker and end of valve stem (lash) reduces the amount of time, or degrees of rotation valves stay open at the same time; result is engine sees a smaller cam profile. Loosening lash will generally move torque curve down the rpm band.

In the other direction tightening lash increases duration valves are open in time and degrees of crank rotation resulting in better breathing at high rpm, and more overlap which reduces low end torque.

Another way to describe overlap is the time that both intake and exhaust valves are both open. Overlap allows gasses to flow through engine at a higher rate, and aids in scavenging exhaust from combustion chamber at high rpm. Unfortunately at low rpm overlap reduces breathing efficiency. This why an engine with a big cam needs a high stall converter, and low geared rear end to keep engine rpm high enough to stay in the power band.

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67' Dart GT Convertible; the old Chrysler Corp.
82' LeBaron Convertible; the new Chrysler Corp
07' 300 C AWD; Now by Fiat, the old new Chrysler LLC

I do have a fairly aggressive cam 230 intake/exhaust lift. What I am finding is tons of torque but not much in what I call "tire shredding" take offs. Don't get me wrong once it is going there is a ton of power like even at 50-60 mph I can hit the gas and accelerate quite nicely. You bring up another good point. I am using the stock torque converter could that be limiting the power from the engine to the rear wheels?

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2006 Jeep Commander
2013 Chrysler 200

1964 Valiant 4 Door
1965 Plymouth Barracuda
1967 Chevy Camaro

Forget the lash specs given from the cam manufacturer. You need to open your lash up and then low end power and responsiveness and idle quality will likely increase.

Try opening them up in 0.003" increments, or search for the recent post on a "blind" lash setting procedure. Sorry, I cannot find it... I have found that loosening the lash gives much bigger gains in the low end, and I have not seen a significant (easily measurable) drop in top end power.

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

My engine has a big cam of unknown manufacture; engine was a pig down low in part due to cam, poor carburetor tune, and less than optimal racing rear gear. For the longest time there was no rubber burning, even with 9.5:1 compression, oversized valves, 2600 stall converter, and 3.55 rear gear; the choir just couldn’t sing…

Finally after several years of carb tuning eventually aided by an o2 sensor, using a degree wheel, and more lashing than a normal slant could stand, this engine pulls eagerly of the line. Both intake and exhaust are set to 0.024â€￾ with a few cylinders lashed as lose as 0.028â€￾ to get all six cylinder compressions within a few psi of the others with the aid of a compression tester.

Idle quality settled down, lope lessened, idle in gear became predictable eliminating left foot braking and feathering of throttle in traffic. Engine will now spin both tires on dry clean pavement with a bit of power braking. 1-2 shift at WOT ~6000 rpm barks the tires. It is still lacking low end grunt, but after 4000 rpm it pulls real hard.

Just say’en

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67' Dart GT Convertible; the old Chrysler Corp.
82' LeBaron Convertible; the new Chrysler Corp
07' 300 C AWD; Now by Fiat, the old new Chrysler LLC

What is the recommended interval between valve adjusting ? Years past,when I bought a new slant car,it was the first thing I would do. I seldom did it again on that engine.

I remember once putting a length of rubber hose in the wrench to adjust the valves. This added a little flex to the wrench, and made it easier to hold as it jiggled up and down.

Sam

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2006 Jeep Commander
2013 Chrysler 200

1964 Valiant 4 Door
1965 Plymouth Barracuda
1967 Chevy Camaro

Just wanted to say I am not ignoring your post just trying to get a base of where others have gone.

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2006 Jeep Commander
2013 Chrysler 200

1964 Valiant 4 Door
1965 Plymouth Barracuda
1967 Chevy Camaro

No problem. Thanks. My guess is with that cam you'll end up around 0.022"/0.026" or a bit looser.

Lou

_________________
Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

Should I open both exhaust and intake equally or 1 then test then the other?

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2006 Jeep Commander
2013 Chrysler 200

1964 Valiant 4 Door
1965 Plymouth Barracuda
1967 Chevy Camaro

That rustle of evenly adjusted solid lifters is a beautiful sound. Don't try to kill it. Learn to love it. I come from an era when all hi-po engines had solid lifters. That was the 365 hp SBC 327, the Chrsyler 273 hi-po V-8 and even the Chrysler 300-d hemi. We associated that sound with power. Learn to love it.

Sam

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When I adjust valves running I use a short flex head ratchet with a deep well socket on it. Flex head lets the handle float around in you hand a bit. It works for me.

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2 Mopars come with Spark plug tubes. One is a world class, racing machine. The other is a 426 CI. boat anchor!

12.70 @ 104.6

[quote]wjajr do you know what your lift is? I know you said it was unknown so I am expecting you don't but hoping.[/quote]

This is a long story figuring out what the heck I bought as a 67 Dart GT ragtop (you guessed it; it’s a slow TV night).

Let’s put it this way, when I purchased this former drag queen (she ran four summers at Englishtown, NJ in mid-nineties), it had a lumpy cam, Clifford intake and shorty headers, and a Holley 390 cfm carburetor, that’s all I knew about it from looking at engine and the seller saying it had over sized valves. After two and a half months of working on it I got her back on the road mid-May of ‘08, but not running right by a long shot, and not looking too sharp.

Late summer of ’08 I replaced suspension with a Cuda Formula S clone build, sub-frame connectors, and front anti sway bar. Drive train lost its reverse manual valve body for a fully automatic / manual unit, and a 2600 rpm stall converter driving a 3.55:1 8 ¾â€￾ Suregrip. The car was still a turd, did not have any get up and go. Oh yeah, the old Holley was giving me fits, and carburetor icing became a big problem late that fall.

Spring of ’09 I couldn’t stand not knowing any longer, and pulled the 1977 Peanut head to sadly find it was bone stock with a 0.040â€￾ head gasket; can you say loooow compression. I then got a set of ENDG builders oversize valves, ported & gasket matched head & sent head out for a 0.075â€￾ shave, hardened larger valve seats, dressed manifold mating surface, and new studs. Also dropped off 3.55 pumpkin for some shimming to remove a big clunk. Also did a quick tune up on the 1977 A- 904.

Once the reworked head was installed giving 9.5:1 compression, as soon as the engine started, I could tell it was much stronger, and backing the car out of garage confirmed this first impression. It felt like a different engine, still had big drivability issues due to carb jetting, I thought. I continued to dub around trying to get it to run and drive well with not too much success, but never gave up looking for the holy grail.

Winter of ’11 this birthday boy got a cam degree wheel kit with all the fix’ens, and it got put to use decoding that mystery cam. Long story short it may not have the highest lift but it does have a big over lap of 101*at 0.006â€￾ lift, and 22* at 0.050â€￾ lift. Lift at exhaust tappit = 0.324â€￾, and intake = 0.321â€￾; times 1.5 for rocker ratio, and deduct for lash to calculate actual valve opening. Close to a half inch valve travel. This cam would deliver 2 to 6 inches of vacuum with a wagging needle in gear idle, and around 16â€￾ Hg at 3000 rpm. The carb could not deal with such a poor vacuum signal, and I was running low on hair to pull out.

Summer of ’11 an o2 sensor got installed to get me out of the weeds tuning that Holley, it helped a lot; carb tuning and experimental lash settings continued until this spring when I had a bright idea to try to even out cylinder compression using lash settings to control valve event overlap. It worked, carb became a member of the team, lope decreased, vacuum came up at all rpms, and the low end torque increased significantly. This summer I have been experimenting with different secondary springs, timing settings, and minor jet changes. Engine has been returning 18.5 mpg up from as low as 10 mpg to previous best of 16 mpg. This thing pulls like a small block right up to 6000 rpm, and that 390 howls when secondarys are open.

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67' Dart GT Convertible; the old Chrysler Corp.
82' LeBaron Convertible; the new Chrysler Corp
07' 300 C AWD; Now by Fiat, the old new Chrysler LLC

That is one hell of a story. Hopefully it won't take me quite that long to get there. I am going to try loosening up the intake/exhuast and see how that goes. One good thing about living in the country there are plenty of empty stretches of road of course I would NEVVVEEERRRR exceed the speed limit .

At the moment since she is running fairly well I am focusing on paint. I am trying to get her ready for Rod Run second weekend of September.

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2006 Jeep Commander
2013 Chrysler 200

1964 Valiant 4 Door
1965 Plymouth Barracuda
1967 Chevy Camaro