of course there are light v. springs, you can use and you can "map out" your clearances, and/or make a spread sheet to track the clearances before and after the critical valve events. I've never assembled anything pushing the envelope enough(over 0.500" lift) to warrant doing it. It can actually be quite a complex problem, because there are so many variables involved. I don't know how you could do it with hydraulic lifters, unless maybe you temporarily ran a pair of solid lifters and adjustable pushrods to check each cylinder. It would be pretty time consuming to do, unless you just used the clay method.
