Quote:
Originally Posted by Sieg
What are the basics to improve valvetrain reliability?
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No easy answer there. Every combination known to man has broken for somebody at some point, and you'll see even very highly regarded builders swearing by completely opposite strategies.
Basically, you see variations on two schools of thought. One school emphasizes valvetrain stability - minimize flexure, resonance and valve bounce through light weight hollow stem or titanium valves and beehive springs. That is also the factory GM approach. The other school goes for brute force - solid stainless valves and high pressure dual springs.
Katech, a highly regarded builder who does a lot of research for GM and built all of the Vette endurance racing engines for a number of years, goes for school #1, and they have lots of Spintron data to back it up.
Lingenfelter, on the other hand, goes for big dual Ferrara springs.
I myself think approach #1 makes the most sense from an engineering perspective, and its worked for me for 50ish track days over 10 years. But YMMV, and as I said there is no absolute 100% reliability on any motor used repeatedly to its limits.
BTW, no reason to replace stock rockers - they have very low "effective tip mass" and are reliable.