then hurry up AND fill us in!! ..

+1 Absolutely - don't keep us guessing . . . . .

The Lifter Saga

Ok, so front bar and bonnet on, lifters are still noisy, see how they go over the next few days.

After a few days the lifters are still rattling their heads off so it's time to do something about it. As we had fitted 2 factory shims due to the regrind cam, we thought we would check clearance. Off comes the rocker cover and after measuring the intake we decided to add another 0.8mm shim. Assumed that was due the maybe the valve tip heights being out.

Start her up and after the lifters pump up they are much quieter. Off we go. After a couple of days we have another look as we are getting popping out the exhaust and a drop in vacuum. Off with the rocker cover again and recheck the rockers. Did a compression test and got 125psi. What the f**k, this is a new engine, I know it is low compression 8.8:1 but this is rediculous. It is suggested that we back off the rockers a bit and try the test again. This time we get 160psi.

mmmmmmmmmmmm Ok looks like we may have some valve ride. Nip the rockers back down and rechecked intake and exhaust this time on No1. Bit different. OK so we back the shim down to get me around, remember this is my daily driver, and I order the shims needed from Precision Shims in Melbourne. Great guy, very helpful and fast delivery.

Off with the rocker cover again , pull the rockers and fit up the shims, back on and away we go. Car seems better.

Getting good a doing these lifters by now, strip down intake, rocker cover etc, rockers off, lifters out, bled down, reshimmed, back together and running in under an hour. Mind you this is on a cooled down engine.

Start having issues again, so its time for a closer look. Chec king the lifters this time I find that they are pumped up hard, and I mean hard, no movement at all when trying to compress them. mmmmmmmm Nason Lifters, Ok your gone and I order a set of OEM lifters. These arrive a couple of days later and after reshimming and double checking we bolt her all up again. Looking better.

Rocker Cover
One of the side effects of taking the rocker cover on and off is that the gasket will f**k up. You may notice in the photo's earlier that I used an ED rocker cover and had it modified to suit my needs.

OK off down to Bursons and pick up a new rocker cover, ED is listed as the same sa EF/EL/AU. No problems. Fit up the new gasket, not that easy to shove in so I applied a little RTV to the Rocker cover groove to help hold it in place.

After running the car a couple of days, i notice oil under the car, Closer examination show oil leaking from the rocker cover all the way round. OK Piss this one off and get another, different brand this time, similar issue. I contact a mate at a Ford dealer to check rocker cover gaskets and he tells me that there is one gasket for the ED (Late 1/2 moon rocker cover), one for the EF/EL and one for the AU (non VCT). s**t so they are all different, he says yes as they all list a different part number, and guess what, none available of any. s**t, pain in the a***.

Check with boys at Precision and they let me know that the 2 brands that they have both say that the gasket is the same for EF/EL/AU. They don't have one for the ED other than the cork style (early) Gasket. OK we will have to look into this.

I check the ED Cover against the AU cover that I have and there is a 2mm difference in the half moon on the rocker cover.

f**k me, now I am going to have to modify an AU Cover to suit my needs, I will do it better this time, which I did and thanks to Da22le for getting it welded up for me. Also got it powder coated black this time. Much better that paint.

In the interum I needed to do something about the leaking cover so, off with the rocker cover again, clean down the edges of the head with a rag with carby cleaner on it and out with the RTV. I know, not the best but better than having the car off the road for a week or 2 while the new rocker cover is done or having an oil socked engine. And it worked, no oil leaks. (f**k b**ch to remove the RTV when you take the rocker cover back off but ).

Last edited by SWC on Wed Mar 12, 2014 9:49 am, edited 1 time in total.

Hey Paul, were the seats recut and the valves resurfaced in the head ?
Maybe they didn't take off the correct extra length off the valve stems ?

The EL gregory's gives a good write up on the clearance checks, and shim sizes.

I have found a seated valve (inlet or exhaust), to have a length of around 32.60mm from the valve stem tip to the valve guide top (valve stem seal removed).
Obviously this is a PITA to do in your situation.

Trust me it gets more interesting the further he goes into it.

The Lifter Saga Continues
Well the issues with the lifters continued. tried all sorts of measurements, different shim combinations.

One of the interesting things I found out was that Ford had 3 different size shims for the 11mm HLA's (EF/EL Rockers) 1.7mm, 1.9mm and 2.1mm. But of course none are available from Ford any longer. All my measurements of the Factory Shims I have put them between 1.77mm and 1.82mm.

I sourced different shims, now have sizes, 0.7mm, 0.8mm, 0.9mm, 1.0mm, 1.2mm, 1.4mm These are all high tensile steel, factory shim at 1.77-1.82mm and 1.9mm Precision Shims.

Numerous combinations were tried but never seemed to get it just right and HLA's kept umping up hard. Did the factory check for clearance between the Roller and cam lobe with HLA Compressed. calculated required Shims but to no avail. Started to consider that there may be an issue with the head. Valve heights etc. Thought about the possibility of an issue with the Reground Cam, nah it is only a CMS2A so it shouldn't case any issues.What was going on?

One of the end results of running HLA's at full extension is that you will f**k them, guess what happened. Yep f**k HLA's and they would decompress overnight and clatter their heads off for about 5km before they repumped up. Time for a new set, set ordered and picked up. Again OEM HLA's.

Before changing these over, Joe and I sat down for a long chat to what was causing this as he has never had an issue like this with any of his heads or cams before. The cam is only 2A and you can chuck these into a stock head with 2 shims and no issues so what was happening?

We decided to go back to basics and forget all our possible conclusions and start from scratch. First would be to replace the cam with a stock EF/EL cam with 1 factory shim. If the issue remained then we would pull the head and go from there.

Last edited by SWC on Wed Mar 12, 2014 9:50 am, edited 2 times in total.

The Cam Change
Dropped the car at CMS on the Thursday night and went in Friday morning so she would be nice and cold. Pulled the rockers out and Jase grabbed a XR6 cam and gave her a good hot wash. While the cam was getting a bath I pulled the HLA's out and pulled all the shims. I checked over the rocker gear and could see no issues with them, I had checked the rockers before with the same conclusion. Thought about changing the rockers but all I had was an old set of EF/EL and they had some pitting on the rollers and an AU set, not a good combination on an EF/EL Head . Bled down the new HLA's, fitted 1 factory shim and fitted the new HLA's with a bit of Vasaline on each HLA.

Pulled the old cam out and fitted up the replacement XR6 cam, funny thing was that I was considering only running the XR6 cam but in the end we decided to go with the 2A. Jase slapped a bit of prelube on the Jornals and the lobes and I bolted up the Rockers and torqued them down to factory spec. Reset the Vernier Gear to 0 degrees and the I checked the roller to lobe clearance. Ford specified a clearance of 0.4mm to 1.1mm between the Lobe and roller with the HLA fully compressed. I checked through and had between 0.75mm and 0.8mm clearance on all lobes. Couldn't ask for much better than right in the middle of the spec. Things were looking good but not getting too excited. Cranked the engine over with the Coil disconnected to spread the lube even though I had turned it over a couple of times by hand. Brett was there when I cranked it over and he commented that it sounded like it had compression, a*** . Truth was, he was correct, sounded better at crank than it had for a while.

OK, time of truth, plugged in the coil pack and hit the key. Fired staright up, little bit noisy but that is to be expected. Great news Vacuum of 10psi, only time I ever got that was on first start up with the lifters bled down and it would soon drop to 9 or 8 psi of vacuum. Idled away for 10mins of so and maintained the 10psi of Vac. Idle was smooth and no popping at the exhaust. Checked the AFR's and WOW, 14.5, best I had got at idle was 11.5-12.0 at idle proir to this. AFR's at revs had been OK 14.1 - 14.7 but not happily consistant. OK things are looking real good. Turn her off and we will need to move a few cars before we can get her out, Time for a smoke and a can of PEPSI MAX, Cold of course .

Final Result

So cars moved and I take her out, down the road and back. Lifters pumped up, all is quiet under the hood and vacuum is still 10psi. f**k am I happy

Time to take her for a good run home. f**k thing thing can now pull. Torque is better all the way through the rev range, Pulls off the mark well, cna be confirmed by a Red VE SV6 that thought he was king s**t .

Got home after a long detour and nothing but smiles all the way

AFR's are good all the way from idle up through the rev range. Took a little time for the ECU to sort out a few things but it didn't take long. Remember the ECU is running the Moates Quarterhorse Chip. Only problem I had over the weekend was that I used a stack of fuel, may have had something to do with me driving the car every chance I got and a few beside .

Now all that is sorted it will be booked in for a tune with the new Fuel rail, BA XR6T Fuel Reg, 42lb injectors and Supercharger Bypass Actuator fitted. Lets BOOST the beast .

I will let you know how it all goes.

Post Mortem

OK after this long drawn out saga, what are the conclusions and what did I learn?

Learn't that Ford actually knows the right place to put a belt tensioner.
Don't overpump HLA's
How to strip and refit Rocker set in under an hour. Had enough practice.

Learnt that OEM lifters are streets ahead of Nason etc lifters.

Go with your gut feel. I thought about changing the cam back earlier in the piece but talked myself out of it, should never listen to myself. Appear that the 2A cam is a bad grind, we still need to check it against Joe's specs but even if it is out, there is little we can do as Wade did Joe's grinds for him and they are no longer around. Joe is organising another grinder, so as soon as that is sorted we will see if we still want to use the 2A or stay with the XR6 cam or maybe even look at a custom grind, time will tell.

Overall for this I only really made 2 mistakes,
1) Belt Tensioner position
2) Not listening to myself and changing the cam earlier.

Makes you feel stupid sometimes. As I had said to a few earlier in the piece, it would end up being something simple.

It will be full steam ahead from now and as soon as Joe have some free time on the Dyno we will be getting some boost into the beast. Be able to put some time into working out the tuning on the Quarterhorse and sorting out the live tuning and data logging.

My thanks again goes to the following,
Joe, jase, Brett & Shane at Cresent Motor Sport for their time and the use of the workshop.
Dazz for all his fabrication work.
Enzed at Ingelburn for the work.
CBC Bearings at Campbelltown
Bursons Campbelltown (many odds and sods)
Precision International at Silverwater (Engine Parts)
Tony from All Cylinder Head Services (shims, etc)


What am I going to do with my time now......... Ahh I know.... E series offset 330mm front brakes, no not the Race Brakes Sydney kit either.

Good to see you have a win with it. You have put the hard yards in and deserve it.
As far as your spare time?
There is a scoop to be fitted to a Maverick bonnet and a mould to be made if you want to make a few jew coins with your fibreglassing skills.
I have a somewhat popular part here people pay stupid money for and you cannot buy aftermarket..........

May, or may not be, any use, but I still have my Tickford head , cam, and matching rocker gear....

Still waiting for the video.....lol

Thanks for the offer Dazz. All is good with the head and cam now. Been running well all week.

Just got back from CMS. Joe is checking the bookings and Boost and tune should be done in the next couple of weeks but definatly before Easter.