EQ Heads and stock rocker arms?

1.8) changing the lifter preload cuz .080 to .095 is a ridiculously huge amount of preload;( I run 1/2 turn). Why do you say that? Factory was all the way to like .120
Not saying your wrong, just remember trying to figure this out myself. I did a cam in my magnum, used harland sharp roller rockers. Non adjustable. Stock pushrods and they had like .090 preload. Hughes said it was fine, but seemed high to me.

Cuz, most hydraulic lifters are only good to maybe 6000/6500rpm, before they start to creep. And if your valve springs cannot control the valves after this, then the lifter will pump up for sure, doing what they were designed to do;namely be slack adjusters.
So, if you miss a shift (manual trans), and the Rs climb into the 8000s, then the valves float, the lifters do their job, and if you didn't plan for this during the build, then the valves get into the pistons and you basically ruined the heads. But it gets worse. Maybe all this monkey motion spits out the keepers and a valve drops into the chamber. Or if the head of a valve breaks off,and if it gets into the water jacket;you get to buy a new block. Maybe all you are left with is a crank and some rods.
But maybe you get lucky and she just bends all the pushrods.
And you don't have to miss a shift to get into this kindof trouble. Maybe the valve springs are just not up to the task.
With an automatic it's a different story. The 727/904s have a very wide 1-2 split, and the 2-3 is only slightly better. So it doesn't take much of a cam and then you are winding it up to 6800 for the 1-2, and to 6400 on the 2-3. So if the springs can't handle it, you are in the same chit.
But if the preload is only .020 or maybe .030, then if the lifters do pump up, there is no danger of the valves hitting the piston. You might not even notice it on the street. Until one day you need to chop the throttle right after hitting the shift-rpm and the engine stalls, and won't restart afterwards; cuz the compression is way down.
The trick to long valve-train life on the street, is to run the correct spring pressure for the expected operating range and not much more. Extra pressure just creates heat and costs power, and stresses the cam.
Now, if you wanna buzz it up to 7200 on a regular basis,( like I do) you cannot afford lifter pump-up. So more than .030 preload is risky business.
Or I guess I could just get solids,lol. But I have a hard time with solids and streeter being in the same paragraph, much less sentence,lol. I like going several to many years without a valve adjustment.
During a hydraulic lifters entire life it should never require .120 adjustment range. If the wear at the lobe-interface got to be that much, the engine would long ago have succumbed to be an oil-burning lump.
But with a non-adjustable system......you get what you get. So get yourself a rev-limiter. And ease into finding the proper shift-rpm.
As for me, I missed a shift once, and saw the tach-needle coming down past 8000. No damage, and engine idled perfectly. Hughes anti-pump-ups and #1110 springs IIRC and I shimmed them up "a little extra",lol. Cam is one of theirs an old HE 3038 with advertised lifts of .549/.571 using 1.6 arms.