I did a cam swap along with an electric water pump, double roller timing chain, new lifters, springs, etc.... Well my low coolant sensor popped off and I lost about 3 gallons of coolant, refilled the radiator, burped it, and it hasn't been running the same ever since. It would stumble all over the rpm range, I assumed it was because the opti got drenched and the loose rockers.

Got the car home adjusted the rockers and it ran fine but still stumbled. After popping the hood I noticed that the passenger side header was glowing red. Shut her off and adjusted the rockers again the next day thinking that I had them too tight and caused the glowing....well now the car won't even idle. Anyone have a clue as to whats going on? I tired adjusting the rockers again...and same result.

-B

 

Are you sure you put the opti on right? it may be possible you put it on 120* off.

 

It ran perfectly for a week...so the opti has to be on right.

-B

 

funny mines doing the same thing... Untill I had the rockers adjusted and put the valve covers back on the car ran and reved great .. As soon as the Engine got wet from coolant the car has run like *** No throttle response pops and back fires going down the road... Hard to start and stay idling I can tell its a miss on a cylinder or 2...

 

Im debating wether or not to yank the water pump and throw on my old opti because it was working fine....or maybe adjust my rockers again for the 6th time. Its sad when you can get the car up on jack stands, loosen the accessory belt, take out the alternator, yank the valve covers, and adjust all 16 rockers in under an hour.

-B

 

Okay my car hasn't been running for about a good 9 months now. After my cam install things ran great for about a week and took a dump after I drove around for a week and readjusted the rockers.

After several suggestions on the boards and lists I pull everything and discover that 6 of my pushrods have a slight bend in them. So I get a new set and swap them in and readjusted the rockers. I also did a compression check on cylinders 1,3,5, and 7 while the motor was cold with all of the spark plugs pulled and TB crack all the way open.

#1 showed 30, 45 and jumped to 120 on the third time I crank it over.
#3 was 120
#5 was 70-90
#7 was at 30

I have no idea what this means but its probably bad.
I took one look at the passenger side and said screw this...NO way in hell I could get that compression fitting and hose to fit. So I replace all of the spark plugs and pray that its only the pushrods.

Reinstalled the pushrods and adjusted the rockers to ZERO lash and locked down the ploy lock. Started up the car and it finally idled!!! So I shut her down and put the valve covers back on and fired her up again....then I hear this nasty knocking sound and yanked the valve covers to find 2 rockers off the valve stem and a bunch of the rockers were totally loose.

Readjusted all of the rockers to ZERO lash again and this time around it didn't idle at all! Maybe I messed up....so I tried adjusting with the same method of spinning the pushrod till I feel a slight drag and lock down the ploy lock. Fired her up....and same deal...no idle.

At this point I was pissed....so I loosened up all of the rockers to the point where they would wobble back and forth but not slip off the valve stem and cranked the car over. It idled like a CHAMP! One by one I just turned the rocker nuts down enough to where it would start to lower the idle and almost stall and back up using only my fingers and tightened the poly lock. These damn comp "R" lifters are sensitive as HELL... a 1/6 of a turn will either stall the car out completely or let it idle.

After adjusting them I went for another ride and it idled but after a while it started to stumble again and stall. I need to readjust them again but need a preceise way of doing them. Anyone have difficulties adjusting the rockers with comp "R"s? I tried everything from 1/2 turn to 1/4 to Zero turns after zero lash and Im getting nowhere.

-B

 

You have some other underlying problem. There is no way you should have to readjust anything that often. What concerns me more is your bent rods and low compression. I think you should do some homework on the lift of the cam and bind height of the springs. I think you have some miss match going on either with springs or rockers or both.

It also sounds like you have non self aligning rockers without guide plates. You could also have the wrong pushrods but that's the least of your worries.

What I would do if I were you is loosen each cylinders rockers one set at a time, then run each piston up to TDC and do a leak down test. Be sure each cylinder is reading the same and adjust the valves to 1/2 turn past zero (were the pushrod just starts to drag). At that point, check the travel of the valve and rocker and look for anything touching or binding during a slow rotation.