You better…think!

When building a hot rodded engine you always need to use your own brain and question what other people tell you. Case in point: Just because a set of pushrod spacers comes with the WW 69,5 mm stroker crank doesn't mean you will benefit from them.

If you have followed my blog during the engine assembly you may remember that I took the time and effort to lengthen the pushrods at an early stage. Guess what. I missed my own rule. What I should have done was to assemble the engine first and then figure out what to do with the pushrods to get a good geometry. Not the other way around.

The thing with rocker arm geometry is that you want to minimize the maximum angle between the valve stem and the adjuster by having a slight angle backward when the valve is closed and a slight angle forward when the valve is open.

Now I have discovered that I actually get a better rocker arm geometry with stock length pushrods. Thus I am now in the process of removing the spacers from the push rods.

On a side note it seems as the pin bolts for the rocker arms on the Okrasa heads were made of cheese. Either that, or the previous owner was used to cast iron V8 engines and didn't own a torque wrench. In any case all four pin bolts were yielded and needed replacement.

The picture show the test assembly with the lengthened push rods.