[wyomingoutlaw]

I had a machine shop do my heads, and they installed dual valve springs. everything is great except the new retainers are dished. this is causing the rocker arm to rest on the side of the retainer and not on the valve, and when the cam begins to lift, the rocker arm pushes down on the side of the retainer until the retainer moves down and out of the way. if I use a longer pushrod, the rocker arm rests on the valve stem like it should, and pushes on the valve like it should, but the rocker arm runs out of travel and everything binds.

I've considered grinding some relief on the bottom of the rocker arms to clear the retainers, or opening up the slot on rocker arms to allow more travel, but the thought of taking a grinder to my new roller rockers kinda makes me sick... so I've been researching this problem and just came across lash caps. this is ther first I've ever heard of them and I don't know how I missed these things, but, what exactly are they, how do you install them, what keeps them on and finally, would they fix my problem?

[ericnova72]

Lash caps could fix your problem with clearance, but you may need to get a longer rocker stud so that you don't run out of thread. ARP sells several different lengths of studs.

The lash cap will require you to have keepers that are machined for clearance for the lash cap's lip, and I think they have to be 10° keepers and retainers, I have never seen keepers machined for lash caps in 7°. The lash cap CANNOT touch the keepers. If the valvestem tip is long enough to keep the cap off the keepers then it is fine regardless of keeper degree angle.

The lash cap looks just like a bottle cap, made of steel. the cap sits on the valvestem tip, it is kept in place by its inability to fit out of position through the valve lash clearance, kept in place by the rocker arm, just lke the arm keeps the pushrod and lifters in place. Run about $35 a set. Commonly .060-.080" thick above the valvestem.

Lash caps may require you to use a longer pushrod to maintain correct rocker arm geometry. You have been checking the geometry too, haven't you?? Sounds like in your case the longer pushrod really messes with the goemetry right now if the arm runs out of travel using it, but it might be correct once a lash cap is in place. Just a guess right now is that it will still be .050" too long even with a cap.

The only other fix would be to grind the rocker arm body for clearance, this gets done alot but I'm like you, don't like to do it if there is another way.

You could also get different height retainers if you have room to take some shim out from under the spring, but if there is no shim or not enough shim that won't work either.