"Red Bull"

Red Bull
(Bandit #7)

Specs:

1998 Ford Explorer Eddie Bauer
5.0 V8
4R70W
4.10 D35 Open
4.10 Ford 8.8
Manual 4406
BFG All-Terrain's 285/75/16 (33's)

Mods:

Engine
302 bored .030 over (306)
XE264HR Cam
Dual Valve Springs
OBX Headers
Machined GT40P Heads
Red Powder Coated Intake, Oil Pan, and Valve Covers

New:
Injectors, valve seats and seals, lifters, pushrods

Steering
2003+ Sport Trac Knuckles
Mevotech TTX TRE's

Brakes
Sport Trac Brake Upgrade:
-12" Rotors (Front)
Ceramic Brake Pads

Lighting
6000k 30w LED's
Clear Headlight Corners and Lenses

Suspension
Warrior Shackles
Add-A-Leafs
2" Torsion Twist
1" Body lift
Bilstein 4600 Shocks
Mevotech TTX Ball Joints and Upper Control Arms
Extended swaybar links

Interior
Limited Steering wheel with redundant radio and digital temp controls
Digital HVAC
Custom leather upholstery (red leather in place of perforated leather)

Electronics/Communications
CB Radio

Exterior
Custom chili pepper red Paint PPG concept
Tupperware removed and holes welded up
"Serious Explorations" license plate frames front and back
Cut and re-welded front fenders 5" to clear larger tires
Limited Color Keyed Front Grill
Painted Rear Bumper
Chopped front bumper bed-lined

Sound
JVC KW-NT300 Nav/DVD/CD head unit
PAC adapter for steering wheel controls
Kicker DS68 6x8 Coaxial speakers
OEM 8" sub
SiriusXM

Exhaust
Flowmaster Super 44

Replaced:
Fuel tank
Cats
Tailpipe
Leaf Springs
Steering Rack
Inner Tie Rods
Front 4.10 Diff
Water Pump
CPS and Synchronizer
Radiator
A/C System
Front O2 Sensors
Muffler
Wheel Bearings
Multiple Fuel Pumps
Motor Mounts
Transmission mount

Rebuilt
Transmission
Engine

Kris' Old Registry

 

[CDW6212R]

The factory rocker arms are bolt down, nonadjustable, those get torqued and they don't need retightening.

 

[MrQ]

Hmm, then I have some really loud rockers then. Maybe I need to go with a thicker oil? 10w40?

On another note, I think it's the front main seal that is leaking. I was reading install threads last night and I saw a few people put RTV on the keyway. I did not do that when I installed the seal, so maybe that's the issue? The oil is all around the harmonic balancer and the tone wheel.

 

[410Fortune]

rtv on the keyway is just to keep the key in place when the damper is installed.

You might need to replace your front main seal again!! Timing cover PITA
So how much oil is it leaking? You have confirmed its not coming from higher up?

just remember "it could always be worse!!"

 

[MrQ]

It's a significant amount. If it is the timing cover, I'm just gonna change that timing chain at the same time and advance the timing another 4 degrees. But if the oil is getting on the tone wheel I doubt its the timing cover, every where I could see the gasket was dry, not taking it out of the realm of possibility, but it is a real pain to replace that gasket.

Any thoughts on the lifter/rocker noise or is that just the nature of the stiffer springs on the valves?

 

[410Fortune]

sock rockers should be pretty quiet unless there is slack between the rocker arms and the pushrods?

Timing cover is a PITA to replace, BUT it can be done in 4-5 hours total since it is fresh you should not break any of the water jacket bolts

 

[CDW6212R]

Yes, the rockers should not be noisy unless the cam lift is different enough to alter the lifter preload too much. Most noise you hear about is either old noisy lifters, or from roller rockers that require custom pushrods and adjustment. Those are still much louder than stock rockers even when adjusted ideally. That's a worrisome thing for me about roller rockers, they are less reliable and the noise makes it tough to know when they have any excess wear. I'm going to use shaft rockers on my street engine builds, and you don't want to know what those cost.

The front seal can leak from wear on either the crank or the balancer, plus the seal being old. My balancer was worn slightly in my black 98, I changed that when I was trying to do the WP and timing chain. I broke a WP bolt, and backed out of that project then. So my old front seal, on a new balancer, doesn't leak noticeably now. My old balancer didn't look bad really, just the slightest little wear line. But that was enough to let some oil get past the seal. I do recommend the Power Bond replacement balancer, it's a quality part and less than $100 extra over a stock balancer, $160ish IIRC.

 

[MrQ]

I'm concerned that the head shop did not follow my instructions on the valve locks. They wanted to use offset locks on the exhaust valves because they said the stem was too short. Since I was not up there when they did it and I couldn't really tell from the heads without taking the spring retainers off, I'm not sure if they did or not.

They also said those springs were mostly used on chevy engines. Kept pushing their Crane parts, too.

Stock rocker arms, 6.3" pushrods, and new lifters. The dual valve springs, retainers and valve locks are different however. New front main seal, balancer is pretty new (replaced in '18).

I need to get a video up here on the sounds I'm hearing. Probably a lot better than me trying to describe it.

 

[CDW6212R]

I'm not familiar with all of the OEM valve springs and various retainers, or the weird spring spinners or rotaters. But in general it's best to avoid any odd valvetrain parts, those rotaters for instance can over time lock in place and hold the spring from rotating. The springs are supposed to be able to rotate, and proper quality spring parts achieve that just fine. So stick with quality parts, normal stuff and avoid the oddball parts.

The cam paperwork would identify the spring strength needed to work well. If the cam is not really big, and I doubt you chose one that is too big, the need should be not much beyond stock springs to do just fine with the cam. You might want to recheck the springs they used(plus any odd retainer parts), and what the cam states is needed. Most likely the parts are adequate, and the noise will have to be tolerated. Unless you want to go back through the valvetrain work again. First just confirm the parts used.

 

[MrQ]

I bought all the parts myself, per @410Fortune 's build on his ranger: valve locks, springs, retainers, valve seals, push rods, and lifters. The cam is a mild 114° separation with .512 lift over the 115° and .500 stock.

 

[CDW6212R]

Yeah, that's mild enough there should be no greatly louder sound from the rockers etc. If you're sure it's from under the VC's etc, I'd find the time to R&R the VC's and see if everything looks okay. Is the sound from both sides or just one, one louder than the other etc?

 

[MrQ]

Pulled the intake and the valve covers. Everything looked ok, until I got the flashlight on them. They SHIMMED the intake valve springs!

Intake valve with shim

Exhaust without

Now I read that spring shimming is usually trying to get consistent spring heights on the valves, but OEM didn't require them?

 

[CDW6212R]

Shimming the valve springs is very common, it's to obtain the needed spring height specified by the cam or expert choosing the springs. It's about having the proper spring pressure at a given height as needed by the camshaft. So typically there will be an installed height for the springs, to achieve the closed valve spring pressure, which also relates to an open pressure for that cam lift.

So the shims don't mean anything bad necessarily. Some heads have to have spring pockets due to the head surface design where the spring sets, that sometimes affects whether a shim can be used, or if cutting is needed to make a spring pocket for the shims etc.

Look closely at the retainer for any contact marks from the rockers, or any other wear marks at all. Check that the valve stem keepers look locked in, not movable at all, any movement sideways of the rockers etc. How tight are the pushrods, will they spin easily on some of them, none should be really loose up and down. All lifters should have some pressure/compression on them from the pushrods/rockers etc.

 

[MrQ]

Pulled the first two rocker arms off and they look good, nothing loose on the pushrods either. Not sure what's going on here. I'm pretty sure those valve stems should be the same height with no pressure on them from the rocker arms?

 

[CDW6212R]

The intake and exhaust valves are often different lengths or the keeper grooves are different distances to the top surface. You can R&R any of the rockers at any time like you have it to check anything there. Look closely at the gap between the bottom of each rocker and the edge of the retainer below it. Most will be at a position where there's tons of space due to the cam lobe of each. But find those which are closest, and if needed rotate the crank a bit either way to make that gap reach the closest point, see how close they get. They should never touch of course, but the needed clearance is based on the rpm's and rocker/parts designs. I don't know what the gap needs to be, but it shrinks as rpm's go up, so like a piston/valve clearance, it has to be enough they don't touch. Any contact should mar both parts, and cause some kind of noise, plus damage eventually. I don't see any contact marks on the retainer pictured, but it's hard to tell with that. You eyes can see that better than any picture can catch.

 

[MrQ]

No contact marks, everything looks good. I'm stumped.

I have half a mind to just fix the oil leak and damn the noise. Once I get the right exhaust on it I shouldn't hear it anymore. Still annoying as hell though.

I can't even get the stupid springs off to check the valve seals on the passenger side exhaust valves (the oil in the exhaust ports I saw earlier). Double springs require more than the average compressor as they have no way to grab the inner springs.

 

[MrQ]

Apparently there is a procedure for installing these rocker arms. You have to do each cylinder at the base circle of the cam lobe.

I found this out the hard way when I snapped one of the rocker arm bolts while trying to get to the recommended torque. (The remainder left in the head came out easily and I can get a new bolt from Autozone, so not too cheesed about it.) Out of curiosity I wondered if there was something I needed to do to install the rockers properly and I found this procedure.

Be sure the pair you're installing have the lifters on the base circle of the cam - in other words, both valves would be closed if the rockers were on. Hand tighten them to zero lash - with one hand rock the rocker while tightening with the other hand. Once it barely stops rocking (no gap on the pushrod end or the valve stem end) you've reached zero lash. From that point, torque to 18-20 ft-lbs while counting the number of times the bolt turns. It should reach that torque somewhere between 1/4 turn and 1 turn. If it takes more than 1 turn to hit the torque when starting from zero lash, then shim the rocker higher. One .030" shim will reduce the number of turns by about 1/4. If it hits the torque in less than 1/4 turn - you'll likely have a hard time getting it to zero lash by hand, or to zero lash at all - you'll likely need longer pushrods. If it hits the torque just short of a 1/4 turn, you may be able to 'shorten' the rocker by evenly removing some material from the bottom of that rocker's fulcrum. Unless you've replaced the cam with a different one (sometimes replacement's have a slightly smaller base circle) you probably won't run into needing new pushrods.

Once you've installed each pair this way (you'll have to turn the motor over by hand to get each pair of lifters on the cam's base circle - follow the firing order to minimize hand cranking) and cranked the car, if they're noisy, you may have to go back through with everything good and hot (or at least warm) and re-install. The clearances change slightly when things are warm, and I've found that any noisy ones I've had generally quiet down when I do the install procedure warm.

Note that the rockers aren't really adjustable. The install procedure is there to tell you if things are dimensionally the way the should be in the engine. You can just torque them down - but then you won't find out about any potential dimensional issues until you crank it. And then, occasionally, you can find out about them the hard way.

Looks like I'm going to be doing this to each of the valves just to make sure everything is right.

 

[410Fortune]

I went through all of this in the 07 Ranger thread, the correct way to torque everything with the pedestal mount rockers

Was there any up and down play in the pushrod? under the rocker arm tip?

 

[MrQ]

I went through all of this in the 07 Ranger thread, the correct way to torque everything with the pedestal mount rockers

Was there any up and down play in the pushrod? under the rocker arm tip?

No. But some of the push rods twisted really easily.

 

[410Fortune]

twisting is okay, those valves are probably closed
up and down is not okay
any wear marks on the underside of the rocker arms and tips of the pushrods?
pics would help

 

[MrQ]

This is from the exhaust valve on cylinder 1. It looks the rocker arm was grinding into the push rod and it wasn't allowed to rotate. Could this mean I have a bad lifter?

Intake valve, this just has the normal wear around the top that I saw on the stock pushrods.