Bore and heads I would go between a .030, .038, or .040 overbore. Whatever fits your budget which will determine how nice of a piston you get. Whatever it is, I would stay away from the lightweight pins for a nitrous application. On the Heads, to avoid having the get new headers and intake, go with the new Bulldog or TA Stage 1 aluminum head. Even if you don't pay to get additional work done, they generally out flow ported irons. You also will be able to get more flow out of them later as money permits. Get the heads with the 11/32 valve stems. I think the Bulldogs did some movement of the rocker shaft mounts to help avoid spring interference with more aggressive springs but I will have to look into it to say for sure. I don't know if TA did the same thing. I know I was very frustrated with my Stg 3's trying to get a roller spring to fit with the Stg3 head that already requires its own custom rockers. You would think that when they were designed, that would have been fixed especially for the price. The Stage 3's were suppose to be made to work with high lift roller cams. The rockers need special machining to get the roller spring clearance. One more reason why other people end up going Chevy. How much are you still driving your Buick?
Rick... I'm afraid I dont drive it on the street anymore,I could but it means wear on engine parts so I took tags off it.Also bein so low slung it drags on Everything,and it got to be a hassle fixing the exhaust all the time too .I remember when a fella I know bought one of the first few sets of the stage 4 roller cam heads and they needed to be machined in the rocker area for clearance too. In fact he never put em on a motor that I remember,I was buyin some parts from him from time to time and they stayed boxed up on a shelf. I woulndt be turned off from the track eliminator head just from a header standpoint.As long as I can keep my current valvetrain I'm cool with em. I guess Im just into taking small steps nowadays just coz I have never met the full potential of my past combos.The next step is a set of forged pistons and after that a custom cam.Reckon I'll go .040 in case the walls are a little scratched now. I'll be playin around in a true 10.5 race at Orangeburg on March 13th,its a good day to get some tuning done on a good surface and its fun for me.Theres also goin to be a seperate W class as well. Might get one more round of testing done before then and work on that new 46 tune,but thats it,just new shoes and no place to go..see yall fish
Rick: I feel your pain when dealing with springs on the Stage 3 heads for a roller cam. A lot of time spent looking through catalogs and calling tech at just about every cam and spring manufacturer. I ended up opening up the spring seat (carefully as it can get thin on the intake port side). That opened up a bigger selection of springs. Unfortunately using a larger dia. spring created clearance issues with the rocker arms. So a jig to mill the underside for clearance was made. Several solutions I can think of would be: A tapered spring would be one. Another would be to use a Jesel type individual shaft paired rocker set-up and just have bosses cast into the heads to bolt the set-up on instead of shaft perches like the stock Buick head and all aftermarket Buick heads I'm familiar with. That wouldn't leave the outside exhaust rockers hanging off the shaft with only one side being supported. Heck with the S3 heads you need unique offset rockers anyway, so if you're upsizing to the S3 stuff they need to be purchased anyway. Why not spend just a bit more and get the better Jesel stuff and not have to worry about the mods. I'm not knocking TA, my entire combo is a who's who of TA parts (and I like it now), but this was one area I thought needed to be improved on. The roller I went with was a custom mech. roller. Comp ground it using Extreme Energy lobes. 254* int. and 260* exh. .647" lift on both sides on a 112 LSA. Running a true 11.7 to 1 CR. Spring pressures came out at 240 lbs. on the seat and 560 lbs. over the nose.
WE1 Tapered springs (beehive) will not work with roller or a big solid just not enough pressure.Jesel and T&D will make a set up for you.They machine the rocker shaft bosses off the head and make a rocker stand similar to a sbc.IMO this is the only way to run rockers on a buick but big $$$$.If you want I can figure out how to post pics of the rocker setups I have both here. Fish If I were to buy a set of heads today and already had headers the bulldogs would be my first choice they look nice and have a real nice modern chamber.From what I have seen the bulldogs flow good with minimal clean up and a good valve job.Jim B at pae recently dynoed a bulldog headed pump gas motor it made real good power for what was done to the heads.The down fall is the exhaust port on a Nitrous application.The stg2 style head is better for this.No matter what you do with a stg1 exh port I don't think you will reach what a stg2 will flow.
Std shaft rockers Not sure what all the grief over the std shaft rocker set up is ? It works . .730/.740 245- 600+lbs The T&D or Jessel set up is the way to go if you need a spring bigger than 1.6" dia but unless your cam is significantly over .700 lift do you need em? Dave o No:
1.600!!! I can't imagine trying to fit a 1.60 spring. Maybe you shaft stand was machined towards the intake more than mine. My 1.55 were still all over the rockers and that was after I clearanced them. I got them to just clear static but they move a bit running and was wearing on the inside of the rockers. I will say I wish I had the end supports that you have on your rockers to keep the shaft deflection down. It would have been nice to know in the beginning of the headache of the Stg 3 setup. I would have went to the stand setup from the beginning. Its hard to sell Stg 3 rockers when they are worn on and been cut for spring clearance for anything close to what you paid for them. Not to mention all the labor to get them to fit. :rant: I'm glad to hear someone had some good success with them. there is hope. I'm sure someone would be interested in the custom side support that you have on your rockers.
Thanks 10" A couple of photos would be great. :TU: I know the beehives (forgot the name) wouldn't work with a roller, I was thinking more along the lines of bringing just the top coil inwards and then use a smaller retainer. I didn't explain it very good before, should proofread before I submit. ou: It wouldn't take much to alleviate a bunch of headaches as to clearancing the inside of those rockers. The rest of the spring could remain as is, just pull that top coil in. I'm not sure on the engineering of such a spring, but rethinking it I guess it would or could create a problem with maintaining any sort of integrety with that lone coil being on a different plane than the others...............maybe I'm making too much of it o No: But I guess just thinking outside the box and these kinds of discussions is what pushes us to another level.......not that I'm anywhere near that level! Anyway with my small roller and its intended purpose the TA S3 rockers and springs are working.
I'll get some pics on here but how do I resize them? I have the jesel pics ready I'll get the T&D pics this weekend if Rick doesn't mind :eek2:
10" On my software I just click on the picture and then right click and it asks if I want to resize for email purposes or do whatever...........for anything more concrete I'd have to go consult just about any 6th grader as they'd be more advanced than me when it comes to computers. My brain has a hitch in its gitty'up when you start talking 'puters. I can type pretty good........can't proofread worth a darn.....but I got the golden fingers on the 'ol keyboard :laugh:
I own 2 sets of ta rockers. never had a problem?????mabye you guys should get your parts from the guy who made the head and not some local chevy builder so you can save some money o No: and you guys talk about how much you paid for your heads!! well they are the best heads you can buy for a buick, compare them to the best set of heads you can buy for anything other than bbc sbc or sbf there not out of line.
To All, Upgrading to the Jesel or T&D individual shaft rocker arms from the standard T/A or Harland Sharp rocker arms is like upgrading your non-girdled block to a girdled block. At what point do ya need them???? Thats debatable. Are they far superior.... NO QUESTION!!!! And this is not a knock on T/A or Harland Sharp. Its the design. The standard T/A or Harland rockers use a .816 solid shaft whereas the Jesels that I have use only a .500 shaft. That is .316 thousands smaller shaft which allows the body of the rocker arm to have an additional .316 of material for extra strength. When running a camshaft that requires seat pressures of 300 to 350 lbs you must run a minimum of 1.480 spring diameter. Using a 1.48 spring there will not be much of a clearance or interference issue but you will have to replace the springs more often compared to using a spring that is larger in diameter. When using a spring that is 1.55 in diameter you begin to have valve retainer to rocker arm shaft interference issues. When you machine the rocker arm to clear the valve spring and retainer you make the rocker arm weaker which in some cases caused failure. I had this happen to both T/A and Harland Sharp rocker arms. Harland Sharp will replace all broken rocker arms but that doesn't help the fact that you just waisted a day of racing. Another advantage to the individual shaft mount rocker arms such as Jesel or T&D is they are lighter. When these engines start spinning in the 7000+ rpm range, it is much better to have lighter valve train components such as 11/32 valve stem, titanium retainers and rocker arms. This will help the valve seal quicker, not bounce on the seat and raise your useful rpm up a couple hundred rpms. As in anything you do... how much of a chance do you want to take. I hate it when things break on my car out at the track therefore I want the absolute best I can buy. Take Care
When we did Rick's heads here, I had a set of the T&D individual SBC rocker arms, along with all the doo-dads that it takes to install them. After consulting with both my machine shops owners, and a buddy who is a ME specializing in metalurgy, and all three told us that considering the amount of machining required to install that setup, structrual integrity of that fully ported and very expensive cylinder head would be compromised. We opted to not put them on, and had Mike out at TA clearance a set of his rockers for the 1190 Roller cam springs, and Knock on Wood, Rick has not had a problem with them yet. We run the same setup on George Sweesy's car, and as long as you don't remove more material than is required, you should not have a problem with Rocker breakage. George did finally break a few rockers, but they were 10 years old, and you can only expect parts in applications like this to last so long.. JW
Hey Jim, Why are you knocking on wood??? I have the jesels and never even thought about knocking on wood or worrying about my rocker arms o No: I have to say and you can kick me off of this board if you wish.... But not telling everyone who reads these boards the absolute truth about what is best and what isn't is simply ludicrous. The Jesel and T&D are FAR SUPERIOR. I have a feeling that Jesel and T&D (who makes T/As rockers) would be the people to talk to on this subject. Not your local machine shop.
More of the good stuff...... Rob C. and Greg Gessler had a better understanding of what it takes to mount them after seeing my finished product,It's really simple.
re rockers John what cam do you run that needs 350 lbs seat pressure and what 1.480 spring will do it ? the t&d/jessel are good and you pay for it . if you want to run or need to run a very big spring thats the way to go but it's not the only way to get there . reliability is a concern with my rocker shaft set up ,I'm concerned they wont last another ten years !
When switching to a Jesel/T&D you also get a longer pivot length 1.545 versus 1.35.When you go to a longer pivot length you increase the leverage on the valve/valve spring at this point you make it easier for the motor to open the valves.Any time you can make it easier on the motor the more potential hp there is.Think about it would you rather move a boulder with a 6 inch lever or a 6 ft lever. Now the spring issue ok you can use a bigger diameter spring.Well I also would like to run a taller installed height spring with out sinking the valve or machining the spring pockets way deeper in turn making the head weaker under the spring.With the TA rocker your stuck.How can you effectively raise the rocker shaft to account for the longer valve.The Jesel/T&D you can shim the stands. The metal may be the same between the TA and the T&D (it should be being their made by the same company)The overall design is where the strength is.The small shaft provides more material in the hinge point of the rocker. It has taken me a long time to build my car I'm not a rich man by any means but when I set out to build the car and motor I wanted the best possible parts.My engine builder and I determined that a Jesel rocker is what I needed for utmost reliability.This is a choice that others have made so I must not be the only one thinking this way.I have 20k invested in my motor thats a ton of money.I'm not risking my money and time on a part that I don't think is going to do the job.PERIOD Why should I only buy from TA.I like choices that way I can get what I want.Just because it didn't come from a buick vender doesn't mean it is wrong for a buick.We need to look outside our community and look at all available options.Greg anderson looked to nascar to find an edge in prostock.Most of us know it worked right.Mike has done wonders for buicks and I owe him many thanks but if I think I can get a better part from somewhere else it's my right to do so.
Dave, I have posted my whole combo on this site to help educate others as guys like yourself have helped educate me. The cam I run is a 286/296 duration camshaft. The seat pressures that I run are upwards of 300 but the over the nose pressure was not that great. I used a spring with a lesser spring rate to decrease the over the nose pressure because I dont believe that its as important as seat pressure. I agree with you that a 1.48 diameter spring will never be able to give you a seat pressure of 300. Which is why I chose the combo that I presently have. Being able to use a longer valve as 10InchBuick has discussed allows the engine builder to use a wide variety of valves springs and spring rates. It also allows the use of spring cups and different +.050 retainers. This all leads to increased HP and possible increased savings because I dont have to replace the valve springs so often. Again... regular T/A rockers are great. And will work fine for 98% of the Buick community. But are they the best... I dont think so. Would most rather pay $700 vs $1900 for a set or rocker arms? Probably. What I dont understand is why people get ridiculed for not using 100% T/A Performance products??? Mike is a good guy who has allowed all of us to make our cars faster and its greatly appreciated.
