Dumbo The Flying Elephant

[Larry Hill]

I’m really happy with the lathe. Once I got a few items of tooling done we knocked out the 18 parts in first operation quickly.

[Larry Hill]

Talk about no knowing that you need a tool until you get the tool, a microscope is a good example. Modifying the oh so popular Gen 3 Hemi valve train to get it to “fit”. I wanted to observe all of the radii of the parts that needed some trimming. So I find the radius gage set from our crankshaft grinding days and find a few popular Chevy size missing. I must have left them close to the grinding wheel radius dresser when we sold the crank grinder. I figured out what we need to observe and unwrap new tool bits that supposedly have the correct radius, not. The radius was not full it had a point in the middle. It may have been ok to use but if there is very little parts support it’s not good enough.
As i think Dennis Miller would sign off with “ And so it goes”

[Larry Hill]

The loner test fit head got here Friday but being a grandparent was way more important than working on the elephant this past weekend.

[Larry Hill]

Sometimes you stumble upon a deal. Case in point is the PRI show a few years ago. Pac had a show special on the spring height micrometers I bought all four they had and today I used the real small ones and they are very accurate. It was a case of nothing else would work besides snap gages. And I hate snap gages. Thank you PA C

[Larry Hill]

I have to make an adapter to keep the mic centered on the valve stem. Plus I have the added fun of checking with top locks, standard locks, -.050 locks, and +.050 locks to get the best setup for the head. Man I love this game!! It’s all worth it when the light come on in our lane in a heads -up race, and when it doesn’t I have a new roadmap to follow and guide me.

[Larry Hill]

I finally got the stuff made and was able to figure installed height. The kool part is I was instructed to get several different sets of valve locks. The standard, the +.050, the -.050, and the top lock. It moves the installed height around and with the help of shims I will be able to get to my coil bind target number on each spring. I’m hoping to get to size to plus .005” on installation height.

A tip of the Hat to all of the cylinder head folks, it’s not easy just to get the installed height correct, past Tech, and run hard all the way to the Finnish line. The real good cylinder head people are a bargain.

[Larry Hill]

I’m getting to use my Christmas present from Patsy. It’s a plastic tray from Summit that holds all of the valve train parts in each cylinder’s location.

[Billy Nees]

Originally Posted by Larry Hill

The real good head people are a bargain.

Larry, you are talking CYLINDER head people right?

[Rick J]

Originally Posted by Larry Hill

I finally got the stuff made and was able to figure installed height. The kool part is I was instructed to get several different sets of valve locks. The standard, the +.050, the -.050, and the top lock. It moves the installed height around and with the help of shims I will be able to get to my coil bind target number on each spring. I’m hoping to get to size to plus .005” on installation height.

A tip of the Hat to all of the cylinder head folks, it’s not easy just to get the installed height correct, past Tech, and run hard all the way to the Finnish line. The real good cylinder head people are a bargain.

FYI, avoid +.050 locks if you can, if not use 10° locks & retainers.
Reason is locks only clamp on the valve stem below the groove, the ID of the lock is larger above the groove.