Post by
2_Liter_Turbo »
https://forums.nicoclub.com/2-liter-turbo-u12924.html
Fri Jul 18, 2014 7:36 pm
Ok, since I have had experience with issues pertaining to solid lifters I'll drop my .02 cents in (I run tomei solid lifters).
First thing is first. You MUST run solid lifter spec'd cams. Hydraulic lifter specific cams have too aggressive of a profile on the ramp up and down sides of the lobe. They will cause them to hit the valve seat way too fast and hard and it will damage the seats, valves themselves, cam lobes and eat through the shims (ask me how I know this... lol). Hydraulic lifters have give when they hit the seat, so you can run the profile more aggressively. You can run solid lifter cams on a hydraulic setup, but not the other way around.
Secondly, when you had the machine work done, did the machinist just drop the valves in after regrinding the seats? If so, this may be your issue. Valves typically need to have the tips ground to get the installed height within spec. It seems to me that your valves stem tips are sitting too high from the seal surface of the head. I honestly don't know what this height needs to be, otherwise I'd tell you so you could measure it.
There is some good news though. You can order smaller shims than the test shims. The test shims are sort of "middle of the range", so order up a full set of one size that's fairly thin for the side you can't get a feeler in. As for the other side, just adjust accordingly to the tomei equation.
Hope this helps! I've ran into tons of issues with solid lifters in the past and so I got pretty good with them before I got everything figured out, ha ha.