I finally finished up a few projects and today was the day to start working on my engine again the parts are slowly trickling in. I wanted to degree in the camshaft so I could get ready to check my valve to piston clearance. I got the now correct timing chain and gearset and went to bolt the top cam gear onto the camshaft and in my new ARP cam bolt kit the bolts are 3/8-16 but my camshaft is 3/8-24. Called Comp Cams (waited on ignore for 35 minutes) and gave them my camshaft part number and they said that all 3 bolt Mopar cams are 3/8-16 and they do not tap them 3/8-24 Comp does not even offer a bolt 3/8-24. So basically, they were no help at all. (Customer support of performance parts is at an all-time low in my opinion!) So now I had to order some ARP 3/8-24 bolts from Summit hopefully they will be here tomorrow afternoon. So now I move onto my Trickflow 270 heads to remove the valve springs on number 1 cylinder to install my checking springs and just for the hell of it I install my Harland Sharp rocker arms and shafts to see how they fit and low and behold no side clearance with the supplied .031 shims and .700 spacers. Literally .000 to .002 clearance on the first head and head number two about the same. So now I am 0 for 3 today. I call Harland Sharp because they are fairly local to me and because their catalog does not show a thinner shim, .031 is the smallest and the next size down spacer is .485. I leave a message and figure they probably would never call me back. At this point I would have to machine my spacers down to make clearance for the rocker arms. I started calling around to local machine shops and of course everyone is swamped, and they could not machine my spacers for at least two weeks. So now I am 0-4. Cleaned up tools and etc for the day. Gunna have a cold one or two at this point and I do not normally drink but this new motor is starting to drive me to drink. Well to my surprise Harland Sharp called me back around 4:30 eastern time and said they would send me .015 shims (.015 are not in the catalog you must call them if you need them) for my rocker arms free of charge and they would ship them free of charge. WTF a company that actually called me back and cares about customer service and wants repeat customers. Well, my faith in customer service is definitely looking a little better than it was a few hours ago. Hopefully next week I will have some more updates.
Sorry about the rant.
Steve