Edelbrock valve cover, heads up.

[uneasyrider]

If you have these Edelbrock valve covers these Harland Sharp roller rockers will hit the cover right on the two inner bolt bosses on the inside edge. It drove me CRAZY trying to figure out what the ticking noise was!:mad: They are nice and thick but the thickness makes them too wide for the rockers to clear. I've had to go in and grind off the sides of the two inner bolt bosses so the rockers will clear on both banks. There are little rub marks on the rocker arms where they have been hitting.:mad: I have E-heads though and I don't know if that makes a difference BUT they are E-heads so you would think it wouldn't! OH! BTW The little fake allen head screws in the top will get hot and the glue will give way and they will fall out after a while. I pulled them off and turned them over to look at the inside of the valve cover and all of them fell out.:mad: They look good and they are solid and I haven't had them warp or leak but they have some issues.;)

http://static.summitracing.com/global/images/prod/norm/edl-4256_m.jpg (http://store.summitracing.com/largeimage.asp?part=EDL-4256)

[Armadillo]

Also, there is not a baffle in them so oil will come out of your breathers.

Tom

[SCOTT ESTERLE]

Purchase a set of baffled grommets & that will take care of that.

[shark landis]

Same issue with the GM Pontiac cast covers..and IRON heads. Hate to grind on anything, but it seems to be a necessary evil.

[Ron H]

I ahd to grind my M/T covers in the same area because of the roller rockers. Does someone sell a baffle, mine don't have them and i do have oil coming out my breathers.

[uneasyrider]

Hmmmm, my covers have a baffle? I have no major problem with these valve covers as far a build quality goes, except the cheesy allen heads falling out. Over all they are a fairly well made valve cover. It's just that they should expect these to be used on an engine with roller rockers. You buy a set of Edelbrock valve covers its as likely as not you hopped up the engine and rollers are getting to be real common, ya know what I mean?

[428PHIL]

My covers came with baffles and screws as part of the package? Had to replace them with Moon when I update the motor with 1.6 rockers and roller cam though.

[dragula81]

I just put these valve covers on my new engine (pictured below), I haven't even fired it up yet and one of the fake allen heads have already fallen off!! To make it worse, I have NO idea where it's at so I can't even try to glue it back on. I'm sure there is some high-temp glue out there that could keep these in place. If not, Edelbrock WILL be getting these back under warranty. I think these cost me about $120 and I expect better quality from Edelbrock.

Also, my covers came with baffles that you had to install yourself by driving in a twist-pin with a hammer into an unthreaded hole in the underside of the cover. I'm not wild about this either. Hammering on an aluminum valve cover is bad enough, but I wouldn't be surprised to find one of those pins laying in the oil pan one day. Ridiculous!

[Jack Gifford]

Dragula- Nice detailing. Did you make those tubular wire looms?

[uneasyrider]

I just put these valve covers on my new engine (pictured below), I haven't even fired it up yet and one of the fake allen heads have already fallen off!! To make it worse, I have NO idea where it's at so I can't even try to glue it back on. I'm sure there is some high-temp glue out there that could keep these in place. If not, Edelbrock WILL be getting these back under warranty. I think these cost me about $120 and I expect better quality from Edelbrock.

Also, my covers came with baffles that you had to install yourself by driving in a twist-pin with a hammer into an unthreaded hole in the underside of the cover. I'm not wild about this either. Hammering on an aluminum valve cover is bad enough, but I wouldn't be surprised to find one of those pins laying in the oil pan one day. Ridiculous!

The engine looks GREAT! I just took out all the little allen head things and the twist-pin deal didn't give me a warm fuzzy either. All I can say is that if you hear a ticking and you think it's a valve it more than likely is those rockers hitting the covers. It will take a bit for it to ware through the anodizing on the rockers and at first it leaves a very small mark on the bolt boss that you don't even notice. I've ground over a 16th inch out of my bolt bosses and it needs more. It sure made us pull our hair out for a few weekends readujsting valves etc until the guy that built it thought of fireing the engine with the valve cover off and there was no noise. Then we got to looking and there were very small marks inside where they were hitting.:mad: The "core" of the valve cover is fine but the design has a flaw and the build quality (cheesey allen head things) has some issues. I'm worried about one of those plastic allen head things ending up in something inside my engine. I took one of them off the first time and flipped them over right over the head and I couldn't find one of them after I picked them up. I doubt they could go down into the oil passages (it would have to be a "lucky" drop) but that didn't give me a warm fuzzy either.:rolleyes: That's been my experience anyway.

[Armadillo]

I need to applogize, I did find where the baffles go on the valve cover. I just did not get the baffles installed when the engine was put together. I will look at the baffled breather gaskets that are available and go that route. Once again sorry about that.

As far as the clearance goes I did go with a 1/4 inch (KRE) cork gasket and was told that was what was needed for the clearance issues.

Tom

[uneasyrider]

I need to applogize, I did find where the baffles go on the valve cover. I just did not get the baffles installed when the engine was put together. I will look at the baffled breather gaskets that are available and go that route. Once again sorry about that.

As far as the clearance goes I did go with a 1/4 inch (KRE) cork gasket and was told that was what was needed for the clearance issues.

Tom

NP on the baffles, glad we could help. BTW did the KRE gaskets help? The problem I'm having wont be helped with gaskests because changing the height of the cover will not change the gap between the rocker arm and the bolt boss. I know because even though I could see that it wouldn't I was hoping that possably there would be some gain so I tried it (cork gaskets) and it didnn't do a thing but change the point on the valve cover that the rocker was hitting on.:( I actually ground the cover through yeasterday in an effort to fix the problem and now my new pretty valve cover has JB weld on it.:( I do think that I might have gotten it down to one side hitting now though. I'm going to go and grind on the left bank some more and see if I can keep from grinding through this time and hopfully fix it.;)

[Armadillo]

When I picked up the engine Jim (CVM) told me he tried stock valve cover gaskets and needed to switch to the 1/4 inch ones I took to him. Only running the (comp cams) 1.52 roller tipped rockers.

Tom

[dragula81]

Thanks for the compliments on the engine!

Pontiac Jack, I found those wire looms on ebay. They were an unknown brand but the quality is very nice. They're adjustable from front to the back about 1" in either direction which is nice. I really like the clean look but you have to have plenty of room on either side of the engine. The drivers side was hitting my brake booster, but I just bent the brackets down slightly which fixed that. I don't think you could use these on an AC car though. I don't think they would fit with the Evap core box under the hood. My firebird is a non-ac car so that was no problem for me.

[Jack Gifford]

Thanks. No clue who makes them? I suppose a person could tackle fabricating some- maybe use aluminum tubing and polish it... hmmm.

[dragula81]

Thanks. No clue who makes them? I suppose a person could tackle fabricating some- maybe use aluminum tubing and polish it... hmmm.

There was no name brand on them but I found some like it on ebay. These are the same as the ones that I have (except I paid a little more for mine on ebay too :-( ):

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/BALLMILLED-BILLET-ALUMINUM-WIRE-LOOMS_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ46101QQitemZ80104 32555QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW

[dragula81]

Oh, BTW, you won't be able to use any custom-fit plug wires with these. Several of them will be too short. I tried a set and they just wouldn't reach around the backside of the heads thru these looms. I bought a set of universal ACcel wires so that I could cut them to length myself but even a couple of those were almost too short as you can see in the pic above.

[Bryan Jensen]

Just as a follow up, has anybody had the same trouble with the signature series valve covers??? Just got a set but I got HS 1.5 rockers instead of the 1.65...

[Jack Gifford]

Thanks. No clue who makes them? I suppose a person could tackle fabricating some- maybe use aluminum tubing and polish it... hmmm.

Yep, a guy could do that! I like the way they came out- quite neat. I polished some thin-wall aluminum tubing and pop-riveted it to aluminum brackets. The hardest part was drilling and tapping 10-32 holes in the heads to mount them. Wouldn't you know that I'd break into the water jackets, so I had to use sealer and an O-ring on each screw.

Thanks for starting me thinking about this style of looms!

Edit: Please disregard the motley assortment of sparkplugs- they're whatever was laying around- just to fill the holes!