Mystery solid lift cam valve lash help

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Bardstown KY
I’m gonna preface this by saying I don’t know much about cars. I’ve been fuckin with old harleys for a few years now. This is my first project car. 70 dart swinger with a 383 and 906 heads. It had a tick, after getting the rockers and pushrods out I discovered I have a solid lift cam and stamped steel rockers with a lot of slop in the pushrods. I’ve since then picked up a set of isky adjustable rockers and the correct length pushrods from 440source. My brother and I are going to adjust the rockers using the eo/ic method, I’m looking for suggests on what I should set the lash at on a mystery cam. It hits a pretty healthy lick. Was used as a race car.

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How do you know you don't have hydrolic lifters?

Shoot us some additional photos of the front of the engine the entire valve cover area etc.

Forgot to mention, go to mymopar.com and look in the reference section. You can download your cars Factory Service Manual. If the engine is not the oe engine to the car. Look for casting dates or the numbers stamped into the block. Or the rail by the oilpan for a vin ( might not be one there but look anyway) your trying to establish the approximate year of the engine so you can download a FSM for a car in the year of the engine for engine specific reference
 
Its hard to believe someone would put together a solid cam motor without adjustable rockers. Did it have adjustable pushrods?
Anyway, assuming (dangerous, i know) its a fairly mild purple shaft, i would set them at .020/020. The lash settings on the old purples were huge, newer style solids are usually about half their specs.
If you want to be safe, looser is safer, but noisier.​
 
Its hard to believe someone would put together a solid cam motor without adjustable rockers. Did it have adjustable pushrods?
Anyway, assuming (dangerous, i know) its a fairly mild purple shaft, i would set them at .020/020. The lash settings on the old purples were huge, newer style solids are usually about half their specs.
If you want to be safe, looser is safer, but noisier.​

I honestly think somebody pulled the adjustable rockers off before selling the car. We’ll go with 20/20 and see how she runs.
 
I dunno man.....if it was me, and I know this probably isn't what you want to hear but since the thing came to you in a somewhat bastardized condition I'd wanna get to the cam itself and try to get some numbers off it for a positive I.D...
There's a possibility the last guy had some valvetrain noise he didn't like, and saw on the internet and TV how guys are putting solid lifters on a hydraulic cam. The problem is, when you do that you can't really have any lash there because the hydraulic lobes don't have the clearance ramps like the solid.
In other words if you go on the assumption that it really is a solid cam, and it's not, and you set the lash at .020" or whatever you'll destroy parts and that's no good...but like i said that's just me; I tend to get a little paranoid with things that someone else built.
If there was any way you could confirm things with the former owner, that might save you some hassle.
 
There's a possibility the last guy had some valvetrain noise he didn't like, and saw on the internet and TV how guys are putting solid lifters on a hydraulic cam. The problem is, when you do that you can't really have any lash there because the hydraulic lobes don't have the clearance ramps like the solid.
In other words if you go on the assumption that it really is a solid cam, .

^^AGREE^^ I would plan on changing the cam, unless you can find whoever "did this" and get some info out of them
 
Adjusted them to 28/32 per the “moparbible”. Passenger side seems a lil noisier but so much quieter than it was. This is the best I can do to provide a video.
 
If the motor was out you could pop the rear cam plug and read the numbers. Agreed, .028 cold seems huge compared to today's solid cams.
 
Most older Mopar grinds were .028 intake and .032 exhaust but they were noisy. I run them at .018 and .022, much quieter
 
Most older Mopar grinds were .028 intake and .032 exhaust but they were noisy. I run them at .018 and .022, much quieter

looks like 28/32 was a good starting point. It’s way quieter than it was but still noisy enough to hear in the car. I believe I’ll try em a lil tighter and see how it goes.
 
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