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[Charger440RT]

I have a set of Rhoads Lifters. I was told they would be noisy, but the valvetrain seems like it is just more noisier than it should be with all the rattling, ticking etc. Are these lifters suppose to be loud, noisy, obnoxious etc when the car is idling? Thanks, Rob

[Dippy.org]

[S-type]

What you are hearing is not the lifters, it's the valves. Because they act a lot like mechanicals the valve closes at a lot faster rate and you here them clack. You will pick up a bit of low end torque and vacuum with them. I had them in my 392 HEMI and loved them. As a side note, you can here them on a Top Fuel car too.

[88copcar]

I used them in my AMC 401 and they were noisy as heck. A few people said I had a problem with my engine it made so much clacking. I had a real extreme cam and the lifters softened it up, made it more streetable. I tried them cause I saw they were available, and I was convinced, they do work. Other companies sell similar lifters, they call them "high intensity" lifters.

S-type:
 I never knew what the noise was from before, I thought it was the lifter bottoming out, do they wear out the valve seats faster or something?

Brian

[Charger440RT]

Well, I had this problem on my Charger. It has a 440 in it and recently starting popping through the carburetor. I thought the timing may have been off, then I checked the cap and rotor, which were new, replaced them with new spares I had anyway, still pops. The car would run great at idle, then as you give it gas it would start popping. So I thought since it had a Holley carb the power valve might have gone out on it. I replaced it with a REAL carburetor, a mint Carter AFB I borrowed from my dad's Cuda and I knew the carb worked damn good. It still popped. So last night, I took the valve covers off and couldn't have got more pissed off. 2 of the rocker adjusting nuts had come completely off. One on each head. It has Crane gold roller rockers and the nut you use to adjust the tension on the pushrod had come off and was laying in the head. I know for a fact I tightened them because you re-adjust your rockers after initial break in on the engine and I took my time doing it. Does anyone else know the nut I;m talking about? This has the shaft mounted rocker system and all these 2 nuts do is hold the adjustment in place. Thanks for any help and the info on the lifers. Now I'm pretty sure the noise I head was more than just the Rhoads at work. Is this a real serious matter for this engine to have a nut laying in the head while it's running? Doesn't sound like a good idea to me.

[unclemike]

I'm not a big fan of aluminum rockers on street motors. This is one of the reasons why.

[Dippy Doug Da Wagon Guy]

Yeah..if you're gonna run adjustable (especially aluminum) rockers on the street, Loc-Tite is your best friend.
Use the "red" hi-temp/hi-torque stuff..a little dab'll do ya.
It makes it a bit of a pain in the butt when your next valve adjustment comes due, as you'll need to warm the studs with a propane torch to get the Loc-Tite to release without ripping the threads out, but it's the best way I know to make things stay put in this situation.
I guess you could also safety wire the nuts, but that's an even larger pain initially, and you get the added thrill of having to avoid dropping bits of safety wire in the engine at each valve adjustment.

[Charger440RT]

Thanks Doug. What if I just double nut it? The extra weight of the nut on each adjuster shouldn't hurt anything as long as I have room to fit another on should it?

[S-type]

S-type:
 I never knew what the noise was from before, I thought it was the lifter bottoming out, do they wear out the valve seats faster or something?

No, the valves do not wear faster.

[Dippy Doug Da Wagon Guy]

Thanks Doug. What if I just double nut it? The extra weight of the nut on each adjuster shouldn't hurt anything as long as I have room to fit another on should it?

Won't "hurt" per se..but it sorta defeats the purpose of those purty lightweight rocker arms. Adding weight to either end of the fulcrum makes valve float more likely to occur..but in all honesty, unless you've really built the snot out of the bottom end or ar running a cam with monster lift, the average RB engine doesn't see the high end of the RPM range enough to get into much valve float trouble. You'll run into the oiling systems shortcomings before you get into valve float zone..

Still, I'd just run the Loc-Tite..it's more elegant than a stack of hex nuts by far, valve float or no..