deseanj9

Hi I am new here and couldn't find a thread or anything online to help solve my issue. I have heads from a 2007 that I have had cleaned, ported and put together. I have tomei cams, brain crower springs/retainers and ferrea valves. I had a shop install everything and set the valve lash for me. I double checked the work and everything came back within spec, but when I installed the heads onto the engine, the valve lash became out of spec. This is my first time rebuilding a VQ and I can't seem to get any information about this issue or why it happened in the first place? I guess I am asking if this is normal or if I should try and take the entire engine to get the valve lash fixed? Any help or advice would be appreciated as I don't really know where to go from here I just know how to spot the issues.

bealljk

iTrader: (13)

What headstuds did you use and what did you torque them down to?

Safe to assume you didnt change any of the lifter buckets after the shop lashed everything out?

Have you talked to the shop about this?

deseanj9

I am using arp headstuds and torque them down to 93ft/lbs, in steps.

I haven't touched anything since I got it back from the shop.

I talked to the shop and they have no idea what is going on. They normally work with american V8s and dont normally touch buckets. At least thats what they told me. They offered to redo it while the engine is on the heads but I don't know if there is another underlying problem that maybe the shop didn't see.

bealljk

iTrader: (13)

93ft-lbs is fine … some guys have over-torqued the heads and this every so slightly offsets the valve seal and that would influence the lash

How far are they off?

I would have them re-do it

deseanj9

It depends, on the right head I have 6 valves that are too tight. I remember one of them I couldn't even fit my feeler gague to 0.01 in there. On the left head only two of them are too tight. The rest of them checked out just fine.
I'll ask the shop to redo them, but is there any reason they could shift this much just from installing the heads onto the engine? That just seems weird to me.

bealljk

iTrader: (13)

Off the top of my head at 12:40am, I cannot think of any plausible reason why they’d vary so much -

If you end up needing different lifter buckets (as each bucket is a dedicated thickness) let me know - I have probbly 40 or 50 spare lifter buckets I have taken out of part-out blocks over the years - happy to either give them to you or take a very small amount to cover my time/expense … and I can help you find the chart in the FSM that has their respective thickness (thickness chart)

deseanj9

OK thank you for your help! I will definitely keep the buckets in mind! I got the heads back in the shop and will hopefully have them back soon.

bealljk

iTrader: (13)

I dont want to insult you intelligence or assume anything but do you understand how nissan sizes the lifter buckets?

If you have access to the Factory Service Manual check out Section EM, page 123 (EM-123) and it has the chart - I screen shot it for you.

deseanj9

Yes I understand how buckets are different sizes in order to properly set valve lash. I have some very helpful teachers that are being super supportive of my learning since this is my first build. The only reason I'm here is because no one I knew could answer my question and I didn't want to continue the build until I knew there wasn't a major issue going on with my heads. Thank you for all the info and assistance!