What vacuum can I expect from a TA 288-94H cam?

Chris,

Just a quick tip on turning the crank while degreeing in your cam. I like to use an old crank gear from a stock timing set. Just slip it on before you attach the degree wheel. Then you can use a large pare of channel locks or a pipe wrench to turn the engine over with out messing up the degree wheel. Of course you should remove the spark-plugs, but you knew that.

good luck

 

Well, yes...plus it was nice to be able to just rotate the engine easily by hand to see if I might hit a valve :laugh:

 

I have a question. Did you run a 12 ga. wire to the HEI or are you using the risistor wire that came on the car?

 

The HEI was not stock on the engine when I purchased the Riv it was in. The HEI had been converted properly and about 6 years ago I ran a new 12 ga wire from the fusebox to the HEI.

 

Well, I put her away yesterday, drove it for almost two hours

25psi in drive at a light was the lowest I saw, so that was good. Engine comes on strong at 50mph so maybe it's the converter, but I will look at carb and distributor first

The engine also is more powerful at low rpms than I thought; I put down a few feet of rubber at about 15 mph by accident

I tried an experiment before I made the trip. I put on my stock rocker arm setup that works correctly on the passenger side, and ran it. A little less vacuum, and exactly the same ticking sounds as the roller rockers.

This leads me to beleive I have my roller rockers dialed in well enough for now, but it also seems to say I have lifter issues

What gets me is that I didn't go over 60 mph the whole drive, and I saw a range of psi from 25 to about 75psi. My oil pressure is perfectly fine, but I have lifter tick?? that doesn't make sense to me

I am wondering if the cam itself is contributing to this, but I can't make myself beleive that just yet

Tranny cooler was the best, easiest modification I have ever made. More fluid, more cooling, more better.

The bad part was I d@mn near really hurt myself moving an arbor press at my shop- the place was filthy so I cleaned it first, so the press had to get moved. I have no idea how much that press weighs, but it comes up to mid-thigh when it's on the floor. Probably a tad over 200#? I dunno. I picked it up fine, but when I took my first step, something felt...wrong in my hips. Much to my surprise, I got out of bed today without feeling like I was wearing a body cast and it's just an uncomfortable ache now, but whew, that was a close one. I used to put 455 blocks into my trunk by just grabbing one at both ends and picking it up. I am officially out of shape now. Moving the transmission on the floor was easier than moving that press! Why are Mopar 727s so light? i also seem to have broken the steering box on the '69 SuperBee up at the shop. Dave won't be happy, but *everything* on that car needs replacement. He should fix up the factory 4-speed and factory Plum Crazy '70 Dart that's up there first. I had to move the 440 crank, so I know the block is up there, too. That little car would be a rocketship with the 440.

Thanks for all the help and suggestions. The next update on the engine won't be until spring, but it should have the right distributor and carb by then. I actually had a fun time driving the car and listening to Christmas music while barking the tires, and that's why I have the car :TU:

 

Glad you got to drive it some. Can'tWait until you can get to track and get some times. I hope I have given some good advice. Later

 

Oh, I believe you John. I used to lift 'heavy things' for my job, up to 150 lbs. at UPS. Always lift with my legs, never my back.

That was what caught me this time; I had it close to my body, I had squatted down, and picked it up OK, it was after I stood up and when I took that first step that I was in trouble.

Hip flexor? I'm not too good with muscular anatomy. It's on my right side, actually the same place I used to get an ache when I played roller hockey. It's gotten so that it's just a warm ache today, I expect it will be gone in a day or two.

But thanks for the reminder :TU: Hope you're doing OK now.

 

Ran across this thread while searching for something else, so I decided to dig it up even though Chris has stored his car.

My build isn't much different than yours, Chris. I also bought everything from TA.
I'm running the SRE/JE .038" over Forged pistons, Crower Sportsman Rods, SP1 intake, Stage 2 Track Eliminator heads, the 310 cam with 1.65 Roller Rockers and Hydraulic lifters. I'm also using their Shorty headers 1 7/8" X 3" All of this along with a bunch of other goodies :Brow:

Anyhoo, my point is I have the same problem as you, top end noise, which has gotten progressively worse since finishing the motor in September. Motor has less than 100 hours on it.

Personally, I think the problem is the Hydraulic lifters. I think it's either a bad batch, or the spring pressures we are running is detrimental to hydraulic lifters.. (Of course, I think it's the previous situation) I've spoken to Mike about this and he assures me they are quality pieces and he's never had a problem with them.

I believe Mike, but have decided that my only recourse is to move to a roller cam and solid roller lifters, which I will also buy from him. I could just get solid lifters and run them on this cam, but I figure I probably should have went with the Roller cam to begin with, so I decided that's what I am going to do. The noise doesn't bother me as much as the fact that if the lifters are collapsing instead of opening valves, I'm losing performance.

I don't put allot of miles on my motor I think in the last 3 months I've put 200 miles on it, off road, of course. That is in the peak usage time for off roading, but I estimate I'll put less than 1000 miles on it a year. Hardly enough to really worry about constant adjustment of Valve lash.

I don't know how much you drive your Buick, but you may wish to consider solid lifters. Just a suggestion...

 

There was some people on the board that had to take their lifters apart and clean them. Seems that the manufactor doesn't do quality contol like the old companies use to.

 

When I first bought the lifters from Mike, prior to putting them in I "Pumped" them up in a coffe can with oil. Found 2 that didn't pump up. This was the beginning. Mike did the right thing and took care of me with those 2. He disassembled them and found nothing wrong with them, but gave me 2 new ones anyway that pumped up ok. My point is this: the lifters pumped up fine, but then failed Almost immediately, so I don't really think it's a "Cleaning" issue.
At any rate, this is definitely not Mike or TA's problem

If I had to guess, someone else might have got the "Contract" to make them for GM, Information we may not be Priveledged to. Who knows, I'm moving on out of necessity.
If my top end isn't supposed to make noise as is the case with Hydraulic lifters, and it does, I will try to correct the situation. If I put solids in it, I would expect the noise and live with it happily.

 

Bill had same problem after 100 miles they got better but are still not as quite as i would like.

 

yldkat55 that's one Wild machine in your avatar. I can understand , it was something people havebeen talking about on here .They just don't make lifters for buicks like they use to. Solids are better anyways!

 

Hi Bill

The car is my daily driver, seven days a week, rain shine or the occasional spring snowfall, from May to October every year. No "nice Sunday Only" cruises, I drive the car to work and park it in Boston at my apartment. It's a tough old car and I wouldn't have it any other way. There's a slight chance I may store it during spring/summer at a place about a mile from my apartment that I pass every day on my way to work, and just swap out cars when I don't feel like abusing the Buick, but that's another story

The 'lifter' noise (if it really is that) is very uniform. Much to uniform to be a lifter or two. It's all of them, even the GM Oversize lifter I tracked down. I can very clearly hear these noises. they were not severe enough to make me hesitate to drive it. I have my own theories about what's really happening, read on

When I put it together, I knew I'd have to re-adjust the rockers afater cam break-in

So I did. The driver's side was making no noise before re-adjustment. Immediately after re-adjustment, the driver's side made the same noise as the passenger.

I took a stock rocker-arm setup and installed it on the passenger side, which always made the noise.

Same sound exactly.

What this tells me is that the rocker arms are adjusted 'well enough'.

The jury is still out, as far as I'm concerned, about what the noise is. I have a few thoughts, though:

1) Lifters are a known concern now, that's a given. But all 16? Even the 20-odd year old one from the factory with the 0.010" stock oversize? I can't swallow that. I'm pretty sure even if I tracked down 16 NOS lifters from GM, that this noise would persist

2) Rocker arms. I've never used this type before. My experience in general and my logic tells me I have eliminated this as a cause- unless this is acting in concert with something else and is a 'normal' condition given my build

3) valve covers. tall, cast aluminum. can these be acting as a sound board? mechanical Engineers tell me 'yes', they CAN, not that they MUST. So that is a possibility

4) Aluminum heads. The material is less dense than cast iron. Can this be a normal noise that I just couldn't hear before because of the head material? Again, pro Engineers (I work at an Engineering form) tell me 'yes' this can happen

5) Camshaft. I have no experience with this cam or cams that increase performance more than a hair. Could the way the cam is degreed, or even the ramp of the lobes be making this noise? Or acting in conjunction with any of the other elements I've listed? The answer of course is 'yes'.

As you can see, I have done a bit of thinking about this :laugh: We will see come spring :3gears:

 

462CID I was reading on the v-6 board and they were having sound problems from quick ramped cams. You may have found the problem!

 

Really? Can you link to the thread, Leo? I'd sure like to read that

 

Can't find that thread again, but I have a artcle in the X-tra about it. I can scan it and send it to you and you can post it? I not that good with posting articles , I do good toget pics up.