Hughes rockers

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justinp61 said:
I don't know what head he's using but with a traditional Mopar shaft mount rocker arm system the adjuster and push rod length have nothing to do with roller sweep on the valve tip. Once you have the rocker arms the only thing that will affect where the roller sweeps is moving the shaft.
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now that's what I was thinking....
 
rmchrgr said:
Here is my 'wipe pattern' below. This is pretty much what you are looking for. Maybe some of the pros out there might disagree but for my application, it was not necessary to screw around with it any more. My combo is RHS heads with 2.02 valves, Comp solid flat tappet, zero decked factory 340 block, Fel Pro 1008 head gasket, Hughes 1.6 Rocker arms, shafts and hold downs. Don't remember what the I.H. of the springs were but they are pretty stout, I have almost .6" lift.

Prior to ordering pushrods, I mocked up the valvetrain and measured everything with a checking pushrod. I did not torque the heads, just snugged the nuts down. After I was satisfied with how it looked, I sent the checking rod to Hughes and they made the pushrods for me.

I also used this plate from AR Engr. to check the max lift of the valve. You kinda need it to do the 'mid-lift' thing right since you need to verify what the actual mid-lift is. Again, this is a time-consuming process that requires attention to detail and patience.

IMG_0036_zpsuigqwopj.jpg
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That looks great ! I hope to get it that good.
one question ? Can't you just order the pushrods directly from Smith Brothers ?
 
Yes you can order directly from Smith Brothers. How are you measuring them? Remember to only have about two threads of the adjuster exposed on the bottom of the rocker arm before measuring.

I've had good luck with Hughes pushrods, I always used their adjustable pushrod. Once I got the sweep pattern the way I wanted lock the adjustable pushrod down and send it back to Hughes.
 
rumblefish360 said:
UGH! Yes, it does. But it is wroth every last second you make sure your stuff is on the money. It shows dividends down the road. Your pattern looks freakin fine.
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It's dead nuts, man!

But, just so everyone realizes, the point of all this is ensuring that the valve tip is 90* to the rocker arm at 'mid-lift'. As long as that is verified, the 'pattern' does not have to be centered on the valve tip, just as long as it's not too close to the edge. There is a spec for that but I can't remember exactly what it is.

The location of the pattern on the valve tip is not proper verification for the geometrical measurement at mid lift. Proper geometry can and will produce a narrow pattern centered on the valve tip but not always. This is what everyone is looking for though which is where the message gets confusing. You have to verify the angle at the actual mid-lift of the valve.

That's where the AR tool comes in handy, so you can measure the ACTUAL lift of the valve AT THE VALVE. So you set up the tool/plate with a dial indicator on the retainer, set it to 0, rotate the motor over to see if A) you have the same amount of lift at the valve as what it says on the cam card and B) find the mid-lift number. Then you look at the 'geometry' of the rocker arm in relation to the valve tip at that point. Is it 90*?

The other point here is that if you go through all these measurements and checks and find the geometry is in fact way off, you have issues that need to be corrected before proceeding, i.e., the parts are not properly matched. Like using pushrods from another engine...
 
j par said:
That looks great ! I hope to get it that good.
one question ? Can't you just order the pushrods directly from Smith Brothers ?
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Yes but I ordered mine from Hughes, they use Smith Bros. materials. You're using Hughes rockers, right?

Again, just cause mine looks nice does not mean it's correct. It is correct 'cause I measured it with the proper methods. Don't rely on an idea, rely on measurements!
 
Nice! Looks like they changed em a bit. Mine are 2010 vintage. Still going strong. Pretty big open pressure last 2 years, too!

Knock on wood.......
 
I planned on working all weekend on the car, but I couldn't wait so I'm taking a personal day off work and getting a jump start . It will be going on six months since the last time the duster was up and running. I'm starting to get a need for speed ! T&T opens in two weeks and I'm sure I won't make the first night but hopefully will get some T&T before the first braket race in April.
 
So the first thing I can say is when they say clean the inside of the shafts, they're not joking ! Those things are filthy. My geometry and clearances look good without shimming accept side to side, but thats easy. The only problem I'm having is with the hold down studs. They're to long. I've had to stack (grade 8) washers on the hold down clamps so the nuts won't bottom out before the shafts are tight on the pedestals.
 
j par said:
So the first thing I can say is when they say clean the inside of the shafts, they're not joking ! Those things are filthy. My geometry and clearances look good without shimming accept side to side, but thats easy. The only problem I'm having is with the hold down studs. They're to long. I've had to stack (grade 8) washers on the hold down clamps so the nuts won't bottom out before the shafts are tight on the pedestals.
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I had the same issue with the hold down studs. I called and asked about it. They said to trim the bottoms but I used two washers like you. Annoying to say the least.

I thought it might be that the RHS heads were not tapped deep enough. Not sure which heads you have but if they are RHS I would suspect that's the case.
 
rmchrgr said:
I had the same issue with the hold down studs. I called and asked about it. They said to trim the bottoms but I used two washers like you. Annoying to say the least.

I thought it might be that the RHS heads were not tapped deep enough. Not sure which heads you have but if they are RHS I would suspect that's the case.
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stock 596heads - and to make things worse - I called hughes and described the problem and was told "nothing i was saying raised red flags"?? So I keep going through the lash setup and noticed on the driver side two of the hold downs loose!! With nuts torqued to 16 lbs !! What the heck ! ! &@$*#&$!!!!!!
Easy fix but it happened to you too ? That not seen could have spelled disaster. One of the loose shaft mounts was over the oiling hole. I didn't bring it up on my last post because I didn't want to sound like I'm complaining about hughes and thought it was probably a isolated incident.
 
How deep is the threaded portion of the hole in your heads? I'd bet that aluminum heads like Edelbrocks are threaded deeper. So you didn't have enough shims on two studs and ran the nuts down on the shank? Why not just cut the studs off and move on? One thing I've learned in hot rodding is that are few true bolt on's, most need some tweaking.
 
justinp61 said:
How deep is the threaded portion of the hole in your heads? I'd bet that aluminum heads like Edelbrocks are threaded deeper. So you didn't have enough shims on two studs and ran the nuts down on the shank? Why not just cut the studs off and move on? One thing I've learned in hot rodding is that are few true bolt on's, most need some tweaking.
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Agreed, not much aftermarket Modifications "bolt on". For me it's just easier to throw a couple washers on top and move on then cutting the ends of the studs off and boogering up the threads and trying to make them nice again but again like you said I'm moving on. I guess my point was that if hughes is doing hundreds of these kind of applications it would seem like if 50 out of the 51 heads were having this problem they would say something? or if Edelbrock heads have deeper hole compared to stock heads yada yada....
Also part of my point is that every paper and page of instruction says if you have a problem to call them and I did.
But in the end all is well that ends well and the reason I'm saying anything is to make sure no one else has this problem and misses something. Hence the forum helping each other.
moving on ......
 
My thinking is that Hughes probably makes one set to use on all heads and would rather have you either cut the studs off or add washers than have the studs pull out of an aluminum head. Personally I like more thread engagement on aluminum parts than I need on iron. This and $1.50 will buy you a cup of coffee in most places.
 
j par said:
stock 596heads - and to make things worse - I called hughes and described the problem and was told "nothing i was saying raised red flags"?? So I keep going through the lash setup and noticed on the driver side two of the hold downs loose!! With nuts torqued to 16 lbs !! What the heck ! ! &@$*#&$!!!!!!
Easy fix but it happened to you too ? That not seen could have spelled disaster. One of the loose shaft mounts was over the oiling hole. I didn't bring it up on my last post because I didn't want to sound like I'm complaining about hughes and thought it was probably a isolated incident.
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I noticed the studs were too long during mockup when I went to thread the nuts on the hold downs, they would not thread all the way down. Two washers solved it for me.

I ran through a lash setup afterwards and had no problems with anything loose.
 
I had the same trouble with my set of Hughes hold downs, checked hole depth, etc, etc. Came to the conclusion that the studs are plain and simple too long; went back to the factory stock hold down bolt and every thing snugged up nice and tight and have not had any problems. My heads are Eddy's, ported by Hughes.
 
Again this is kind of my point of mentioning it that if three out of four having the same issue stock and aftermarket heads. $89! At this point I just want them to work good.
 
Too long for me, too. Just used new grade 8 bolts and called it a day. Wonder if they worked for anybody?
 
Ironmike said:
Too long for me, too. Just used new grade 8 bolts and called it a day. Wonder if they worked for anybody?
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well I gotta be diff., I would have liked for mine to be a little longer. I like the " long as possible in alum." theory too. course my heads are raised port heads.
 
I'll measure the studs that came with my Hughes kit tomorrow, they worked fine with my Edelbrocks. You guys that they are to long for, what do your's measure?
 
justinp61 said:
I'll measure the studs that came with my Hughes kit tomorrow, they worked fine with my Edelbrocks. You guys that they are to long for, what do your's measure?
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Well your sol for me to give a measurement. I've taken those damn things off and re torqued on at least four times in the last two days and have all my lashes set. I'm shootin for that motor to go back in tomorrow :burnout:
View attachment 20160227_162646.jpg
 
justinp61 said:
I'll measure the studs that came with my Hughes kit tomorrow, they worked fine with my Edelbrocks. You guys that they are to long for, what do your's measure?
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I didn't measure the stud length or the the hole depth.

What happens is that the threads on the top part of the stud don't go down far enough so the nut can not be tightened. Guess you could run a die down and cut some more threads. I didn't really feel like getting involved in fastener modification though.

I understand and sympathize with the situation here though - it's annoying and frustrating to get to this point and find the stupid stud is 'wrong'.

Can it be 'fixed'? Of course.

Thing is, you buy the kit thinking that it's gonna work since it was designed for this particular application only to find it doesn't.
 
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