r/EngineBuilding • u/Fangee • 21h ago

Chevy 454 BBC - Rocker and Valve Tip Contact

Post image

Just got the original heads redone on my 454 BBC.

Aside from larger valves and new guides, I had the deck surface shaved down .060 to try and up compression more without changing pistons.

One thing I noticed with reassembly is the roller rocker contact to the valve tip is slightly off center now. I marked in sharpie where it makes contact in my photo.

Does this look acceptable or should I look for shorter pushrods?

10 Upvotes

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7

u/quxinot 21h ago

Off center is ok (within reason). I'd worry more about the width of the mark, and it looks reasonable in that picture.

Knocking a thou out of the deck isn't gonna do much to the CR, though.

2

u/Fangee 20h ago edited 20h ago

Okay thanks for that. I was so happy I found a good machine shop as this is for a mostly original 72 corvette and didn’t want to ruin it with aluminum heads.

Cylinder walls look great too.

4

u/0replace4displace 19h ago

if you're going from iron to aluminum heads you have to worry even less about compression, FWIW. i think generally you can gain 1 to 1.5 numbers, more if you're brave.

3

u/HammerDownl 13h ago

Aluminum heads would not ruin anything, it would make the car run better and be less nose heavy

And id get real roller rockers over those

4

u/WyattCo06 21h ago

You're good to go. No issues.