Make your own valve spring compressor for $15

[cbatters]

Originally Posted by skunkworks

Is there a differance between 1st and 2nd gen? I assume they where first gen - 92 stealth. The hole in the top looked to be less than a mm in diameter. No wonder they get plugged. What I bought is what has been called 3rd gen lifters from partsdinosaur.

sam

Any runs yet to see if it has helped the knock?

I have 1G lifters with the tiny holes and they have always been quiet (except when I am due for an oil change I get a hint of ticking)

I am not convinced that the hole on the top of the lifter is the issue - there is obviously some other internal orfice that holds the lifter up independent of oil pressure.

Not sure what you are planning to do with your old lifters - I would be interested in getting my hands on some "noisy" lifters to better understand the failure mode.

KNOCK
My old seals were so hard/oversized they would slide up/down the stem with zero resistance. Must have been allowing all kinds of excess oil into the combustion chamber. Confident my oil consumption will drop dramatically as a result of changing VSS. (Jury is out on whether the valve guides are worn at 175K. I could not detect any play by hand - not sure how to mesure valve guide wear or if it is even possible with the head on the engine.

Immediately after replacing the seals, I was getting some knock from the excess oil in the cylinders but it quickly went away. I still have an extra 3% fuel dialed in that I will remove to see if the knock is 100% gone.

NOTE: My spark plugs have been running gray-white in spite of good O2 voltages due to the excess oil. Positive sign if they start running gray-tan indicating lower combustion temperature.

I need to re-check compression tonight to confirm that it returned to 155 PSI. Even after compressing the lifters I was only getting 90 PSI in one of the cylinders - although on some of those lifters, I tried bleeding out the oil using a paperclip instead of the tried and true vise technique. In the future, I would only use a vise to reset the lifters.

REALLY BAD IDEA
Contrare to my understanding, there is a LOT of oil being pumped into the valve train of these engines. I ran the engine for a few seconds with the front rocker panel off (to see if it was getting lubricated) and by the time I ran back to turn off the engine there was oil splattered everywhere. Really bad idea.



Clint

[skunkworks]

Originally Posted by cbatters

REALLY BAD IDEA
Contrare to my understanding, there is a LOT of oil being pumped into the valve train of these engines. I ran the engine for a few seconds with the front rocker panel off (to see if it was getting lubricated) and by the time I ran back to turn off the engine there was oil splattered everywhere. Really bad idea.
Clint

I would like to say that I didn't do the same thing but I did - Oil all over the place. When the vavle wasn't seating I tried to run the car for a little bit to see if it would re-seat. Big mistake. I also managed to foul my front 3 spark plugs at the same time. Thought I really screwed the engine up. I don't know if it was because I didn't have the front pcv tube plugged to the lower intake.

BTW - you can have my old lifters if you want - I am not going to use them (or resell them on ebay)

[cbatters]

Originally Posted by skunkworks

I would like to say that I didn't do the same thing but I did - Oil all over the place. When the vavle wasn't seating I tried to run the car for a little bit to see if it would re-seat. Big mistake. I also managed to foul my front 3 spark plugs at the same time. Thought I really screwed the engine up. I don't know if it was because I didn't have the front pcv tube plugged to the lower intake.

BTW - you can have my old lifters if you want - I am not going to use them (or resell them on ebay)

Be careful not to repeat all of my stupid mistakes... (You will REALLY feel like an idiot if you drop a valve like I did!)

ZERO COMPRESSION
You may have just answered my 3G lifter question. Do you think the valve not seating was due to a slow bleed-down of the new lifter after reinstallig the rocker arm?

OLD LIFTERS
Thanks for the offer. Very interested in seeing if I can figure out why your 1G lifters were noisy and mine are whisper quiet. PM me with your PayPal account so I can at least send you some $$ for S&H.

Beginning to think that what I was referring to as a latched/extended lifter may be the sign of a health injector. If it compresses easily, it would be noisy because there would be excessive valve lash. I believe a noisy injector is probably due to an internal clog / not a clog in the hole in the top of the injector.

TWO QUESTIONS:
1. How bad were your old VSS?

2. My head has the look of scorched oil while the DOHC head I have on the bench with ~110K is still silver/gray (although it was from a N/A engine). What did the head on your engine look like?


Clint

[skunkworks]

Originally Posted by cbatters

ZERO COMPRESSION
You may have just answered my 3G lifter question. Do you think the valve not seating was due to a slow bleed-down of the new lifter after reinstallig the rocker arm?

No - something got between the valve seat and valve. I did not have the rocker in at the time. I think while I was tapping the valve washer to break the keepers loose a peice of carbon lodged itself there. running the car cleared it out.

Originally Posted by cbatters

OLD LIFTERS
Thanks for the offer. Very interested in seeing if I can figure out why your 1G lifters were noisy and mine are whisper quiet. PM me with your PayPal account so I can at least send you some $$ for S&H.

No problem there - send me your address I will ship them out. (don't worry about shipping)

Originally Posted by cbatters

Beginning to think that what I was referring to as a latched/extended lifter may be the sign of a health injector. If it compresses easily, it would be noisy because there would be excessive valve lash. I believe a noisy injector is probably due to an internal clog / not a clog in the hole in the top of the injector.

This is my thought - The lifter "pumps" up until there is enough pressure between the rocker and the lifter that there is minimal oil flow though the top hole. Now if the top hole gets plugged it thinks it is already pumped up even though it is not.

Originally Posted by cbatters

TWO QUESTIONS:
1. How bad were your old VSS?

They where hard - the exaust ones where worse than the intakes but if you would squeeze them in your finger they would keep that shape. There was little to no friction between the valve stem and the seal. I am sure the back bank will be worse as the temp gets higher.

Originally Posted by cbatters

2. My head has the look of scorched oil while the DOHC head I have on the bench with ~110K is still silver/gray (although it was from a N/A engine). What did the head on your engine look like?

Mine was pretty dark - i am color blind so it is hard for me to tell.

Did you get my PM with the pictures?

sam

[cbatters]

Originally Posted by skunkworks

This is my thought - The lifter "pumps" up until there is enough pressure between the rocker and the lifter that there is minimal oil flow though the top hole. Now if the top hole gets plugged it thinks it is already pumped up even though it is not.

Slightly different take...

I used to think that the oil pressure was directly responsible for holding up the lifters like some old American hydraulic lifters. Instead, our lifters have a one way valve, a reservoir and a small bleed-down orfice that actually provides the resistance to compression independent (at least for a short duration) of oil pressure. (Case and point - you cannot compress them easily even with zero oil pressure!)

I believe the hole on the top of even the 1G lifters may be HUGE compared to the internal orfice that is critical for proper bleed down. Whatever is responsible for trapping air or causing the one-way internal valve from sealing correctly may be the "noise gremlin".

(Should be easy to identify a noisy lifter because it will be easy to compress)



Clint

[skunkworks]

Thats what I thought initally to - oil pressure pumped them up. - But after I pushed a new lifter in the hole and got squirted with oil from an adjasent bleed hole in the head I figured out it is not under pressure.

Here is a funny thing > I did a search for -lash adjuster work how does- and 2 of the top 3 returned from yahoo is 3S related

sam

[skunkworks]

My o2s would drop at certain rpm - usually around 3000 rpm - light acceleration. This is where I used to get a hesitation but after the fuel pump hotwire the hesitation is gone but I can still get my o2s to go down. Both front and back acted the same.

Now my front cycle while the rear dips. Can't wait to do the back to see if it fixes the rear o2 drop.

sam

[cbatters]

Originally Posted by skunkworks

My o2s would drop at certain rpm - usually around 3000 rpm - light acceleration. This is where I used to get a hesitation but after the fuel pump hotwire the hesitation is gone but I can still get my o2s to go down. Both front and back acted the same.

Now my front cycle while the rear dips. Can't wait to do the back to see if it fixes the rear o2 drop.

sam

Interesting...

Injector cleaning/flow testing solved the low O2 voltage under light load open loop on mine before starting VSS.

Primary goal for me doing VSS was to reduce detonation/oil consumption.



Clint

[skunkworks]

How is your knock? Is it gone/better?

BTW - I will send you the lifters after this weekend. I will have them all out by then. (I might take one apart just to see what is in there - satisfy my curiosity)

Thanks again for your help

sam

[cbatters]

Originally Posted by skunkworks

How is your knock? Is it gone/better?

BTW - I will send you the lifters after this weekend. I will have them all out by then. (I might take one apart just to see what is in there - satisfy my curiosity)

Thanks again for your help

sam

The injectors come apart pretty easily... just pry on the crimped metal cap and it pops off. Then press on the internal valve to disassemble. Pretty slick little device.

Note: If you have a micrometer or dial caliper handy, can you measure the extended / compressed length of your new injectors. Interested to compare the measurements with 1G stock and a 3G lifter I am buying form the dealer for testing.

Knock is nearly gone... planning to pull spark plugs in a week or so to see if they are burning cooler. Also planning to do a seafoam/water injection treatment to clean up combustion chamber now that I am not constantly dumping oil into the combustion chamber.



Clint