I broke a rocker last weekend doing some burnouts (pix in sig). They are Comp Pro Magnum 1.75. Now I'm nervous about the whole lot! Also, concerned about the root cause. Who out there has broken a rocker, what was the cause, and did anyone just replace the busted rocker with no further probs? Thnx R/

 

I'd guess some valve float, check the spring pressure. how crazy is the cam?

 

cam: 222/228 on 115 ... What do I need to check spring (Patriot extreme beehive dbls)pressure? Just had the heads off prior to this, milled the heads a few thous to correct some leakage, new GM gaskets, ARP bolts...bla bla. Clearances were all good... but honestly not sure if the guys rechecked the lash and spring press. R/

 

oh you milled the heads...did you shorten the pushrods?? I take back the valve float, and guess the push rods were too long to run with the added movement of the different rocker arms.

 

SlowHawk did the work and I'm trying to find out if he went to a bigger gasket to accomodate the change...I seem to recall it was only 1 thou or similar that they removed. Maybe it only needs a lash adjustment? Compression didn't change (just north of 9:1), which I assume it wud have if the gasket size hadn't been adjusted. You might be right tho...if u look at the pix of the broken rocker, it broke the retainer rings from the pushrod end. the rod itself was fine. R/

 

I would suggest going back to the stock rocker set-up, and stock length pushrods. You're not really gaining anything with the 1.75 ratio, anyway. You might look into the stock rockers with the Harland Sarpe mod to them. You send them your stock rockers, and they install a much better bearing. I would also make sure to go with the non adjustable rockers (like the stock ones are). There's no real "lash" to adjust, just torque em down to (I think) 22 ft pounds, use some locktite, and you're good. After an "event" that caused your damage, I would not use the remaining rockers, or pushrods. Also, make sure all your springs test good, and all the keepers, and stuff is all there, nothing broken.

 

I'll be replacng the broken rocker with a new one so I can get the truck back home - its stuck at my place upstate. From there my plan is to take the stock rockers from my 5.3 and put them in. Will the rods I have need changing, and will the stock 5.3's work? R/

 

I had problems with the set of comps I ran. the extra .5 screws up the geometry and milling the heads would add to this. you need custom pushrods. I went with Harland Sharps.

 

Could u just run 1.75's successfully, & w/ correct length pushrods be ok? On non milled heads BTW.

 

[QUOTE=white lightning SS;3929855]I had problems with the set of comps I ran. the extra .5 screws up the geometry and milling the heads would add to this. you need custom pushrods. I went with Harland Sharps.[/QUOTE

Thats good info! Can u tell me the actual length pushrod u ended up running? FYI...comp told me that the only reason an event like that happens is with side load. When looking at the pix in my sig, ull notice thats what it looks like happened. He also said that its still rare for the bearing braces to snap off the trunion like mine did, and it was unlikely it was the rod that caused it, and instead the bearing prob wasn't pressed prop, or the alignment wasn't perfect...WTFK!