What a Difference an Accurate Valve Adjustment makes!

[decooney]

Hi Tom,
Just wanted to brag about you a bit and your shop.

So, Tom Lucas at FE Specialties heard my car down at the recent NorCal/Bay Area Club meetup at Sonoma. As I was driving away, he says, hey... I think we might want to adjust those valves ( have solid lifters ). So, over the years, i've pretty much done everything myself, and rarely let anyone work on it and always adust my valves myself. In Tom's case, he knows a whole lot more about FEs and all the quirks and more so than I ever will...

Anyhow, so we agree to meet and let him go ahead and adjust the valves. We pull the plugs, he goes through it a couple of times and finds them loose a bit across the board. I pretty much knew it was time for a adjustment, and could hear a slight clatter in the valvetrain, but Tom knew exactly what was going on and what difference I might see.

So, a few days later, I finally take the car out, and as I started it up I thought maybe I had accidentally left a plug wire off a tad. It just seemed to be rumbling a bit more, hitting a bit harder on all cylnders or something. At that point I was not sure. In the middle of it, Tom calls me and says "well, how did it run?". I had been so busy that week hadn't had a chance to try it yet. I just told him, I idled it and will be taking it out now. I did comment that I could tell something was different at startup, right off the bat. So, I took it out, got it up to operating temperature, and was shocked. All the sudden the motor just seemed to roll on effortlessly, and breaking the tires loose in 2nd gear or early in 3rd much sooner than before. Before the adjustment it took 1/2-3/4 throttle to start breaking them loose when rolling it on "moderately" in 2nd, not hammering it. Sure, you can always break 'em loose when hammering it, but I mean just rolling it on smoothly for comparison. Now, at 1/3 to 1/2 throttle, it does the same thing as before and a whole 1/3 throttle quicker. Takes off easier too, which is interesting. Anyhow, the moral of the story for me is this..., if you are not sure about something, it always pays to have a specialist check it out. Thanks Tom, much appreciated. Obviously, ...very pleased with your valve adjustment. I think there is more secret to it than I thought though...