yeah, kind of one of those things that is probably foolish not to do.

and 0.045" is the height of the integral shim attached to the valve seal. did you go another 0.045" above that?

this has been the most comprehensive discussion of spring height on these valves i've found: PowerStrokeArmy - View Single Post - Comp 910 Valve Spring Install How-To

if you were essentially dead stock on your heights (just using the integral shim of the stem seal), you'd be at 130 lbs of closed seat force, which is what i've seen as "standard" in my limited reading. if you're shimmed another .045, then you're closer to 150 lbs, but getting quite close to full bind height with the valves open (.410 cam travel, as i read).

 

I will always remember a friend truck. He had a late 80's Mazda b2200 with a valve stem leak. His exhaust was broken off right in front of the rear axle. It was late at night in a empty parking lot with a few over head lights in the distance and we're just bsn. In the random bullchit that came from us he realizes that he needs to put some oil in the little 4 banger, 3 quarts later and he's topped up and ready to go. Cranks it over for a few seconds and the it starts to sputter back to life. With some fancy pedal work he gets it running and revs it up. If I had a picture of it you would probably think it was one of the best burnouts a truck could do. People in the distance were cheering him on. It was epic. And the funniest part was the truck never left neutral. This guy was pretty good at doing plain old dumb stuff. We began calling anything a little dumb a Tyler. Clay sells seals for 3 bucks and change. Don't be a Tyler lol

 

That link rang a bell. I used that and set mine at 1.70 installed height, or 135lbs, give or take a hair, which on my heads required a .015 and .030 shim on each..

 

well - thanks to the generosity of a fellow FTE-er, i won't be a tyler and will be installing new ford/international valve seals when i do my springs. :-)

well, i'm glad it rang a bell, Darin! thanks for weighing in. and i'm glad to know i'm on the right track as well, then. any thoughts on that valve spring setup since you've been running it a while? it seems that stock ones can get quite tired after just a 100,000 miles. that coupled with the fact that the 910's will be closing harder/faster than brand new stock springs anyway should theoretically lead to better high RPM performance. did it wind up being anything noticable?

 

It's not really anything noticeable JP. Basically they will control the valves, especially at higher rpm's, a lot better. There would probably be a very minor gain on a dyno from a spring change, but nothing your buttometer would notice. More/less they are a needed supporting mod. I was always going to check my old ones but never did. If I remember I will before I haul them to scrap. They're laying in a scrap pile now.

 

i'm thinking the same thing. i'll have to check the scale on it, but we have a strain gauge at work that i'd like to check mine one. this engine i'm rebuilding always had what was either a valve tap or an exhaust leak (allowing valve noise to escape) from the rear passenger side.

i did find a bad seat where the up pipe met the manifold on that side, but i'd like to compare all the spring forces as well do see if perhaps one of them was particuarly weak on that side...

 

^^^^x2, that write up also rang a bell. When I got mine, Jack at Irate just said to put the .030 shim in all of the valves but after doing the height measurements, I ended up with a .030 & .015 in each for a total of .045.

 

thanks guys - looks like i'll be ordering some additional shims, then. i only have one set of 0.015"-ers (16 total) coming with my springs from Clay, so i'll have to find some 0.030's that i can have shipped to show up around the same time as the springs (or maybe before!).

wonder if pep boys would have them?

 

No sense ordering them until you need them I say. Find out if you need them and Clay can send em out in a jiff!
Its not like you have a deadline to have this thing built and installed. Unless you have plans we don't know about.

 

my deadline is to get my "real" truck back on the road and stop having to drive the junker gas truck with no radio! :-)

i actually ordered them already. $10 shipped from Summit and will be here by Friday. maybe a waste of money, but $10 is worth getting the job done once its started instead of having to wait another week!

 

ok, question for you all: i installed my new oil pump (low pressure that is) last night. i used the melling, higher flow version from Clay. install was a cinch, but in the directions the last line said something about making sure not to damage the crankshaft seal.

i didnt take any pictures before i masked everything off for paint, but check me on this: on the inside rim of the new oil pump looks to be a pressed in, stamped circular sheet metal piece - with loctite or red RTV holding it in place. this is not contacting the crankshaft at all, but looking at my old harmonic damper, there seems to be a mating piece on it that would seat into this piece. i'll be replacing my harmonic damper, so will the new one come with this new seal attached, or do i need to remove (very carefully, that is) the one off of my old damper and use it?

and on a related note - anyone know of a middle-of-the-road harmonic damper option? i want to replace it with new since the old one is off and well worn, but as far as i've seen, the only options are Dorman (for like $60), and "Fluidamper" (or some funny name) for like $500. knowing the harmonic damper is a pretty important piece of the rotating assembly, i don't want to cheap out on the dorman. i also don't want to pay $500 for one!

i can't seem to find a motorcraft one anywhere. apparently Dayco used to make one for ~$125, which is reasonable, but its now out of stock everywhere i've looked - so i assume its discontinued...

thoughts?

 

Fluidamper is more of a racing damper. I run one on my race car. It for sure would work well, but I don't think its necessary. If you can't find anything else I'd probably just go with a dorman.

 

Thanks for the opinion. I'll look around a bit more but prob go dorman if no other options pop up.

As for work this weekend - we took the kids up the mountains to my cousins place so didn't get too much done, but did manage to get the engine painted up before leaving on Friday. I'll post some pics tomorrow but it looks damn good I must say!

While I'm still waiting on my valve springs from Clay, I'm trying to keep movin on other stuff... Next up is the oil cooler. My old one is quite rusty but looks ok on the inside. Any disagreement with blasting the outside of the center section, re-o-ringing it, reassembling and painting it up real good?

 

Ok – here comes some paint pics. It was my first paint job using anything but a rattlecan. I had picked up a bunch of stuff at the Eastwood store during their yearly car/truck show – that I took my son to. He had a blast and there were some darn good deals.

On the engine I used their ceramic cast iron grey engine paint and used the optional urethane activator. It sprayed real nice and 2 coats in 30 mins was just about perfect. Despite 2 weeks of blasting, wiping, wire-brushing and more wiping, I’m sure I didn’t get the surface perfectly clean, so we’ll see how it holds up over time, but it seems tough as nails right now. I painted an old file cabinet with the extra paint in the gun and could barely scratch through it with a screwdriver after 2 days of curing.

All masked up…

I plan to paint the exhaust ports with the high temp exhaust paint when I paint everything else – hence the masking there.

Immediately after paint…


2 days later, unmasked – and the s366 perched on top again…

Anyone want a painted-grey thermostat? :-)

Side view with manifolds bolted up for working on the t4/up pipe fab…


For reference, the manifold is bare cast iron 3 days after blasting. The paint on the block and heads may be just a shade silvery-er than the true cast iron, but its pretty darn close.

Next comes the new valve springs, and lots more blasting of parts to get ready for the black paint on the valve covers, oil pan, etc.

And I thought I posted this on my phone yesterday, but don’t see it here now. Any opposition to blasting up my old rusting oil cooler? I’d mask off the ends so that nothing gets in the passages, but it’d be nice to not have to buy a new center section. And the walls of it look pretty thick…

 

oh and another quick question for you all - i'll be blasting and painting my valve covers soon. since i'll be running an intercooler on the rebuild, i was planning on running a filtered catch can, so can i just lose the CCV doghouse altogether?

this is something like i was planning on using:
Moroso Universal Aluminum Mustang Breather Tank 85473 (79-14 All) - Free Shipping