AutoCraft 2783cc street engine in 61 Rag

[HotStreetVw]

How many miles since the new valve train was set up? How many times have you adjusted the valves since? I wouldn’t go pulling things apart just yet.

As for pushrods I wouldn’t run anything less than a 3/8” .083 on a engine that sees rpm. You can buy them from Jaycee, or manton, or Smith Brothers.
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4inBhore
50 Split - 2724cc NA. Haltech injected
62 Notchback - 2542cc Turbo WIP

[King_vw61]

I'm not pulling anything apart just yet.. 500 miles on new valves. Checked drivers side after 50 miles and there were perfect, Passenger side is harder to get off so I did not check them. They might of been tightening up all along. It has been getting harder to start when cold,(first start) for as long as I can remember. I just thought the hard start was due to the timing curve, me not knowing what degree to set the cranking at.

It starts before i Even have the key turned now. I am going to take it for a drive either tonight or tomorrow night and see how it acts. I did lower the Rev Limiter to 7300 just till I see whats up. I will take a straight edge to the valves next week, I will check the valves again then also.

The old Autocraft 1.25's every time I checked them they were always right at "0", So I got lazy not checking the new Pauter's like I should be. Valve adjustment is a no brainer and I can do the whole thing in 30 min. No valve noise = no need to adjust(in my head),,, never had them tighten up EVER...

well know I know better, I will check them more often.
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1961 Ragtop, Autocraft 2783cc for street/strip 10k miles and counting...230.84 HP to the wheels thru Muffler 13.4 to 1 on E85
https://www.instagram.com/king_vw61/?hl=en

[mark tucker]

check head torque. is ir roller or flat tappet?be sure rocker shafts are tight, what method of adjusting the valves do you use? If the seats were changed it isant uncommon for them to sink a few thou, some more than others. especially if they get hot or leen. many times seats when installed bounce back off the head counter bore. when run they sink back to the surface.some also may have some sheared off material thats under them that imbeds witch sinks the seat...many things can cause it. also... seat erosion. tit valves need either cast iron seats or brillium seats.some people use aluminum bronze,I dont know how that works out , probably fine. but tit on hard seats fretts all to hell and can eat the seat & the valve. brillium should be used on all tit exhaust.cast iron or brillium is ok on the intakes. additives can and do help seats last longer, but dont over dose. I used to use valve tech led replacement, it's good stuff.( I used it on off shore pussy boats to get the seats to last much much longer on the 572& up endurance motors especially super charged. or one that has a issue sinking the seats but cant came appart just yet.....champion race heads turned me on to it after I bought 3 sets of thier cnc ported big ci bbc dart heads..they they put in the rong seats... the boat had to make a poker run ..or 2 before I could change seats... the additive totally stopped the seat recession.

normaly things loosen up, not tighten...loose head..looser lash.loose any thing looser lash... very few things tighten them up seat ression,stem strech or cam issue.are ablout the only thing unless ylou have 1 or 2 cylinders sinking into the case....witch could happen.or head gasket squishing...the super soft head gaskets do tend to squish more then the had ones.

[King_vw61]

Flat tappet, brillium seats. seats were not changed, just guides and new valves.

Head torque is good, with the 910's I can get to top 6 nuts and bottom 4, 2 are blocked by the p/r tubes.

The rockers looked good, they have side supports on them and all looked good.

I set the engine on 4 and set the valve lash at "0" where the push rod rolls in my finger, then tighten and make sure it stills rolls and has side to side play. then turn the engine backwards to #3 and repeat. Tom said I can roll the roller tip on the rocker to set them but I have never had roller tip rockers so I am doing what I am use to.(Not sure if the billet Pauters act different than the forged Autocraft rockers? different metal)

The lead additive you said is NLA, I got some redline coming, can't hurt

Since this engine had the oil spray bars in the heads there is almost no valve train noise. The oil quiets it almost like a hydro cam would.

I will check the valves stems to see if they are all level with each other next week. I am pulling the pushrods out to order series 5 7/16 tapered. I will know what is up then.
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1961 Ragtop, Autocraft 2783cc for street/strip 10k miles and counting...230.84 HP to the wheels thru Muffler 13.4 to 1 on E85
https://www.instagram.com/king_vw61/?hl=en

[King_vw61]

Took the car to Eastvale Cruise night at In-N-Out. 20 miles on dairy roads east of me.

Left at 6pm, it was almost 90 out. Oil never got over 200. Ran awesome, started right up, Idled when cold and never idled over 1000 rpm. Reved car up to 7200 and sounded better than ever. super smooth, not sure if it the new ignition with more power or the tune westech put into the power grid. Or now the valves are set right and that was the only thing needing fixing... We will never know.

Picture of my screen sorry, its on @gzzilla69 instagram, lots of other bugs there.

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1961 Ragtop, Autocraft 2783cc for street/strip 10k miles and counting...230.84 HP to the wheels thru Muffler 13.4 to 1 on E85
https://www.instagram.com/king_vw61/?hl=en

[mark tucker]

I would try a different adjusting method. try the proload method. ex valve opens 1/4"~3/8" and adjust that intake next to it. then roll the crank in normal direction till that intake valve go's down and comes back up, stop 3/8"~1/4" before it closes. than adjust that exhaust next to it. repeat on all cylinders. be sure your cruise rpm isant lean. there is little load on the motor and leen can get the chambers hot. slso many times burns off the header coatings.I always like to be a tad on the rich side just a little.

[King_vw61]

I googled “pro load method” and didn’t find much. Can u please explain what it does different mark? Is it better and for what reasons is it better?
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1961 Ragtop, Autocraft 2783cc for street/strip 10k miles and counting...230.84 HP to the wheels thru Muffler 13.4 to 1 on E85
https://www.instagram.com/king_vw61/?hl=en

[74 Thing]

Mark is talking about the EOIC method:
https://www.google.com/search?q=EO%2FIC+rule+(Exha...p;ie=UTF-8

There is also the TDC method.

Seats and valves settle in so usually the TDC is used at the beginning then move over the the EOIC method, for some at least or just keep to one.

I think you can also adjust a lobe if the opposite valve is at max lift if the lobe is shared by the valves but the spring pressure may lead to inaccurate lashes due to bearing clearances.

[txoval]

I use the EOIC method as well, thanks to Mark sharing the data.

To see the difference, go to #1 and adjust like you normally do at TDC, spin the engine clockwise until the #1 exhaust valve begins to open. Check your intake lash and you will see that the clearance increased

[King_vw61]

Next time I adjust the valves I will try this way. Thanks...

I am adding a shift light to my power grid, the shift light that works off my tach has only one setting(won't let me have different rpm for each gear).

http://www.k4direct.com/k-four-switches-part-numbe...l-red.html (mine will be amber, they are very bright)

This light will be amber and go in my center console. I have no extra wires from rear to front. I did but they are all used.

The power grid lets me pick limit for each gear. you set the rpm drop and it uses that to know what gear it is in. (it's witchcraft) I set it at 1200 drop, my drop is more like 2800 with my gearing. the max drop setting is 1500.

I set 1-2 to 7700
2-3 to 7500
3-4 to 7300

also it knows when you are launching so I set that low at 5200 and hi at 6200

You can set the brightness level also. This power grid is the shit. next will be retarding timing at each shift.

Seems like a good tuning tool. we will see...

Going to a cruise night in Chino at the pep boys this Saturday night... I will test it after that.
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1961 Ragtop, Autocraft 2783cc for street/strip 10k miles and counting...230.84 HP to the wheels thru Muffler 13.4 to 1 on E85
https://www.instagram.com/king_vw61/?hl=en

[King_vw61]

Took the car to the chino Pep Boys Cruz night last night, there was at least 200 cars there, probably 8 to 10 Vw’s.

Car ran perfect again. Wife came with so when leaving she said be good. So I was. Shifted at 6800. Then she said I shifted short, too soon?? Man I wish there was a cheat sheet on how to translate what your wife says.

Later today if I’m bored i’m going to check the valves again

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1961 Ragtop, Autocraft 2783cc for street/strip 10k miles and counting...230.84 HP to the wheels thru Muffler 13.4 to 1 on E85
https://www.instagram.com/king_vw61/?hl=en

[Paul Jr]

I don’t know much about women but from the little I do know, any wife that says you shifted short and the tach was dancing at anything over 6k can’t be all that bad even if you still have trouble interpreting what she says!

[mark tucker]

shift where you want and if she says any thing just say sorry I did not mean to shift so low.
as for the valve adjustment I meant preload method, aka EOIC. some people do that type of adjustment but adjust as soon as the rocker starts to move,I like it when your adjacent valve is about 3/8" off the seat. that counteracts the spring pressure on the other opposing cylinder that may or may not be pushing the cam,lifters&pushrods over .005" or so affecting the valve adjustment. and not all valves are affected by the "pushover" due to the cam lobe layout on these engines. the closer you can get the valves adjusted the better&smoother it will run. just think how much .005" may be in camshaft duration this way or that. on one end of the lobe or both but not all lobes/valves will see this...

[King_vw61]

100 miles since the dyno,

I did the EOIC valve adjust on the 3-4 side set to "0", then rolled it back to #3 to see the difference, the intakes were tight, Not wanting to have another issue with starting I just went with what I am use to and reset them to "0" The 1-2 side were perfect, still at "0'.

When I pull the rockers off and put the new pushrod's in I will go over the EOIC with Tom and have him show me how to do it in person. This will all happen when the exhaust is out to be Jet coated black. The car will be down for 3 weeks at that time.

This Friday is the cruise at Burger town, VW's only, See U there...
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1961 Ragtop, Autocraft 2783cc for street/strip 10k miles and counting...230.84 HP to the wheels thru Muffler 13.4 to 1 on E85
https://www.instagram.com/king_vw61/?hl=en

[King_vw61]

Went to Cars and coffee this morning... Just 3 vw's there but lots of other cars... No pictures, was busy talking to some nice people.. was asked 4 times if it was a Porsche Engine, pretty normal for v8 guys to ask that.

Car is going to A1 this week, I will post pictures once it is done there.

Also My wife set me up an Instagram for the Car, it's king_vw61 I have some pictures up there that never got on the samba..
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1961 Ragtop, Autocraft 2783cc for street/strip 10k miles and counting...230.84 HP to the wheels thru Muffler 13.4 to 1 on E85
https://www.instagram.com/king_vw61/?hl=en

[VeloMikey]

[mark tucker]

the reason why the intakes were tight is the oposing cylinders valve was open and pushing the cam over.but they will have the right lash and equal duration as the rest.other wize you adjust with that push and loose duration on some valves/lobes but not all.and it adds acctual lash to those.

[King_vw61]

[k@rlos]

Just started following you on Instagram, love this car

[mark tucker]

also remember if you adjust warm you will have a - lash when cold.. with thin cromoly or steel rods thats not a big issue as they still flex some and a few seconds of spinning they fire up and get the lash. good pushrods wont do that. they will be open till you get back to the same temp. so if you zero lash it do it cold. you may want to do that then get it hot and check to see what your hot lash is. I think my hot lash was .008, but that was long ago. it's good to wright it down somehwere handy.