I have a 1997 trans am with the lt4 hot cam kit and 1.6SA comp promag rockers. I am running stock push rods now, but I have a miss on cylinder 7 and slightly on 8. I changed and rehanged all ignition and fuel parts, I even ran a compression/leak down test. Every thing checked out, but I notice that the valve train has some slight ticking to it; especially at higher rpms. I think I may have a bent pushrod and I plain on checking them tomorrow. If I do find bent push rods what push rods should I buy for this set up? Or are the stock push rods no good for this set up and should be changed anyway?

 

the cam is made to work with stock pushrods.....Maybe look into hardened ones if you need to replace them, but a "tick" would probably be a lifter instead...in which case get a set of LS7 lifters and be done....

 

LS7 lifters were installed with the cam.

 

if you have to or just want to get new pushrods, i went with the trickflow pushrods. they are fairly inexpensive thru summit racing. if i remember i used stock length with my cam. tfs-21407200 was the part number. good luck

 

I installed the crane cc305 (similar to hot cam), with lt4 heads. I noticed the new gm lifters I used (12499225, part num for 16 lifters) had a push rod seat that was more shallow than the stock lifters being replaced. Using a push rod length checker, I measured a length of 6.95 inches, that would be best for my resulting geometry. I believe the stock push rod length is 7.2 inches. I used scorpion 1.6 roller rockers. It would be a good idea to measure your own configuration to be sure. A pushrod that is too short or to long will cause unnessessary side loads on your valves causing premature wear. If you plan to increase your red line, (usually done with hot cam and roller rockers), it would also be a good idea to use hardened rods. This reduces the spring effect (bad) of push rods which may cause hammering (more excessive wear on valve train).

this page had some good info on push rods
http://scorpionperformance.com/newsi...q/?p=127#faq41

hope this helps good luck