I`d get it centered on the valve stem tip as best I could,through the full eng. rotation cycle,as this will increase the longevity of your guides and springs.
I didn't check for proper length on my 455 in my GTO and paid dearly for it. I had the heads cut and the block decked for nice flat surfaces but what I didn't know at the time is the heads had been cut .030 before I bought them. At this point I had .060 off the heads and .005 off the block. That was enough to give me .250 side to side play on the valve head at .525 lift after just a few thousand miles. Check them and get the correct length.
There are more than one way to measure a pushrod. Check with the company you plan on ordering them from to see exactly how it's done. As for getting a lifter to use to check your geometry, just go buy two new ones at the parts house. That'll probably be easier than digging them out of a junkyard.
Yeah prolly so, the JY around here are pretty slack on anything roller. Just got back from auto parts with hyd. roller lifter, took it apart filled it with lead and put the "cup" back on it, looks like it's gonna work great! Now to mark it as being for clearance checking only
According to my checking of clearances, It's good to go, no clearance problems. EDIT: pushrod length is 7.5625 so I think I can use a 7.550 am I correct? Heres a pic on the pattern.........
looks decent enough to me.. so long as you actually used a lifter of the correct height to the ones you'll be running(which a roller style will not be).. and the hydro plunger did not collapse during cam rotation. most any parts store should carry a cheap elgin solid lifter to use for mock up. At least they used to.. but it might require some inventive application lookups to find a usefull part number. The old books were nice for interchanges.. but the computers can suck at the same task nowadays.
I just bought a hydraulic roller lifter just like the ones I had and took it apart, filled it with lead and put it back together, then used it to check everything out.
wouldn't you want to go with the next size longer for lifter pre-load if you check length with a solid lifter (roller or flat) ? How much pre-load is needed?
I did use a head gasket that was compressed at a previous time, and when I checked, it was with some tension on the pushrod, not sure on how much is needed but I did it like I was ready to fire it up, could spin the pushrod but not really easy.
