Valve adjustment (Lost my thread)

[JerseyRodder]

I asked last week but my thread disappeared in the great crash of '04. I am putting new heads, intake, carbs and pushrods on a chevy 350. What are the steps I need to do in order to get the rockers and valves adjusted properly upon install? Any hints, tips etc. are greatly appreciated. Thanks. ---Rich

[327,JET]

To set your valves you should try to turn your engine the least that you can. You don't want to remove all your cam's pre lube.Take your time it is very important to get it right the first time.I have a S-A workbench book that I use it has the sequence in it .It's called How To Build The Smallblock Chevy , it's readily available at bookstores I highly recomend it. This way you can do it all yourself.I have a whole collection of these book's .The memory isn't what it to be.

[Henry Rifle]

Assuming hydraulic valves . . .

Prep work.

Squirt oil in all the bleed holes, set the lifters in a pan of oil for a while. Unless they're roller rockers, put cam lube on the faces.

It's nice to do the preliminary adjustment before you put on the manifold so that you can see the position of the lifters in their bores.

Put a piece of tape on your harmonic balancer at top dead center, 90 degrees, 180 degrees and 270 degrees.

Chev cylinders are numbered 1-3-5-7 on the driver's side, and 2-4-6-8 on the passenger side.

Here ya go . . .

Make sure the engine is at top dead center. You can verify this by noting that both intake and exhaust lifters in #1 cylinder are level with each other and all the way down in their bore. If that's not the case, you've got #6 cylinder at TDC.

- Set valves on #1 by gently rotating the pushrod between your fingers with one hand while tightening the rocker nut with the other. Continue until the pushrod just quits rotating. Tighten the nut one-half turn further. If you're using poly-locks, make sure that the allen screw is tight.

- rotate engine 90 degrees, repeat with #8

- rotate engine 90 degrees, repeat with #4

- rotate engine 90 degrees, repeat with #3. You should be back at the TDC mark at this point. If not, you fouled up.

- rotate engine 90 degrees, repeat with #6

- rotate engine 90 degrees, repeat with #5

-rotate engine 90 degrees, repeat with #7

- rotate engine 90 degrees, repeat with #2, and you should be back at TDC mark.

This sets all valves with only two engine rotations.

At each step, however, make dang sure that both lifters are at the bottom of their bores. That's why it's nice to do it with the manifold off.

There's another method - but it may not work with really radical cams.

With the engine at #1 TDC, set the following valves:

1I, 1E, 3E, 5I, 7I, 2I 4E, 8E

Turn the engine one full turn so that #6 is TDC, set the following:

2E, 4I, 6I, 6E, 8I, 3I, 5E, 7E

Again, just make sure that any lifter you are adjusting is at the bottom of its stroke.

- Jack