whats the best way to adjust the valves on a 350 lt1 w/ a roller cam. my uncle has never done a roller and wants to know the best way to adjust them.

 

I believe it is the same as a flat tappet hydrualic cam. Shoebox has a good write up on his webpage.

 

LT1 oil pressure at idle is less then 6 psi...
take off the valve cover, loosen the rocker nut and back them off till the rocker slaps..tighten the nuts till it the slapping stops then go another 1/2 turn...

this is done with the motor running...there are all those fancy ways to tight them with the balancer at 9 o'clock tighten 1367 and 2458 and all that mess but the way i posted has been they it has been done for about 40 years...

 

Compression guage.

 

i tightened mine down until the pushrod will not spin anymore (it will but it kind of took some muscle), i did this one cylinder at a time in the firing order of each cylinder 18436572 bring each cylinder (in order) to TDC both valves closed, then went 1/2 turn more on the nut and locked them down. fired it up and some were still clacking, went back thru it the same way and did another 1/4 of a turn on the nut then locked them down again and voila no more clacking

i found that tightening them down until you felt a "slight drag" on the pushrod (could still easily spin the pushrod) was not enuf and they were very loud doing it that way

this was done with the lifters pumped up (filled with oil) when i 1st put them in they werent pumped up and i over tightened them (didnt start it tho) and i was just pushing the plunger down into the lifter, so i went back thru and loosened all of them up and did the slight drag method and found that wasnt enuf! so i did what i mentioned up top and it worked out good

 

Iam running comp R lifters and used shoebox's site to adjust valves. Used the engine not running method, then started car and it seemed fine but went ahead and did the engine running method also, seemed fine. So both methods seemed to work great for me.

 

I also set them initially with the engine off, then again after it was fully warmed up (after 20 min or so). I believe the engine running method is probably more accurate. I could be totally wrong, but it makes sense to me.

 

when i first did my valves i tried that motor off everyother intake then exhaust crap not only did it confuse the hell outta me but it also hung the valves open...i had about 10 pounds of compression in all cylinders.....i loosed them all untill there was paly in the pushrods..did both banks and then took off the coil wire and cranked the motor over to tighten them enough were the pushrod wouldnt come out of the cup and then fired er up...went cka through like i said in my first post..and now have 190 PSI in all holes...when the motor is running you can tell by ear if there to tight...if the valve is to tight youll hear a squeek out the exhaust from the charge forced out of the chamber...

 

ive dont em with the motor off plenty of times and never had any problems. all about preferance though

 

the reason i do it with the motor running is becasue you cant hear the compression change with the valves being tightend and loosend when its not running...

yall make think thats retarted but do it and listen..you can hear the motor thump harder when adjusting...this is on a car with true duals with no crossover so its more pronounced

 

Engine off and use a compression guage. There is alot of hp in ajustment.