[screamingchief]

Originally Posted by importsmasher

I hadn't thought of the fact that you can have different valve length/installed height combinations. I was just trying to figure out a way to determine if my valve stem tips were lower than they were supposed to be, and spring height seemed like a good idea.

Well,on some engines it's extremely common to reference that measurement (btw that's known as the valve stem tip height),but it's not a commonly referenced specification on the pontiac heads at all.

Valve tip height is far more important a concern on engines with shaft rockers and such (buicks,FE fords,mopars,et-al),as on those engines as often it's not all that easy to accomodate any significant changes in the valve tip height/rocker geometry/pushrod length relationship.

And it also often assumes nothing else has been changed either,as you would be measuring the tip height from a "known" location like the spring pad or such.

Anyhow,I know the Crane HD stamped pontiac 1.5 rockers came with some thick 7/16" ID parallel ground/hardened flat washers that could be used for a deal like this,they included them so one could "adjust" the stock rockers with the bottleneck studs,they included some HD locknuts as well,but that deal never really seemed all that good a choice to me.

I always just converted to the 7/16" BBC studs and locknuts or poly-locks.

I cant even remember the last time I tried to use the OE rockers,studs,& nuts.

Bret P.