TimZ

I ended up finding some very low profile stem seals and then cut down the guides such that the stem seals sat as low as possible, essentially bottoming on the spring seats.

I guess it also wouldn't hurt to mention that you should check the clearance between the bottom of the valve retainer and the top of the stem seal to make sure they don't come in contact at full lift. This clearance is not guaranteed when using a higher lift cam...

Yes - installed height (along with the spring rate and free length) determines the seat pressure. Once that is set you then have to make sure that the spring doesn't bind at full valve lift.

Yep - me too. I have disabled Adblock, too, btw.

The last pad rests directly on the top of the valve stem, so the spring won't have an effect on the wipe pattern. HOWEVER - if you change the spring and/or retainers, you will still have to make sure the installed height of the spring itself is correct AND that the spring doesn't bind at full lift.

Do you have the plate and timing gear installed at the front of the head? That should pull the cam back into alignment - you can probably just push it forward to get it to align. I don't see the issue with the rockers - they look like they are crooked simply because they are loose. Do they still do this if you take the lash out? (fix the cam misalignment first) If you are saying that some of the rockers don't reach the same point on the lash pad it wouldn't hurt to check to make sure that the installed valve stem height is uniform for every valve. This is a requirement for these heads that many (if not most) machinists aren't familiar with and overlook. Also not sure what I'm looking at in the coolant port - casting flash? Is something loose?

I'm pretty sure they can do this if you call and ask but as far as I can tell there is no place to request it on their website. The turn signals work fine as is.

Mine are activated by ground. Incidentally, I saw someone mentioning on another post (can't find it now) that they needed to add a relay to get the high beam indicator to work, since it's looking for +12V to illuminate the indicator, and the switch at the column completes the ground, so it's inverted. A simpler solution is to tap the low beam signal at the steering column (red with black stripe on my 78) instead. Since it's "inverted" also, it's grounded when the low beams are on and draws a +12V feed through the headlights when highbeams are selected.

Is the car driveable now? I'd be happy to take a look at what you've got if you can get it down here...

Where in Detroit? I'm in Dearborn

Yes I did, unfortunately it showed up two days after I left on a two week business trip - I'll post up some pics when I get home.

I can't help with the driveshaft questions, as I use a gForce gearset and had to do a custom driveshaft anyway. However, if you have a zx, you should be able to re-use your crossmenber - the crossmember mounting points were different between the two transmissions, but the crossmember was designed with an offset that split the difference. Install with the offset forward for one, flip it around with the offset rearward for the other. Also the same speedo cable should work with either trans.

I'm definitely not an expert, but didn't you mean "1976 and newer"?

So was the smoke/meltage specifically at the connector, or was it the wire itself? If it's the wire itself, I'd think the first order of business would be to find which wire is getting hot and find out why it's flowing enough current to make things melt. Sounds like a short somewhere. If it's the connector, I'd check for corroded connections at the connector pins or where the wire is crimped to the pin. A high resistance connection can cause heat buildup from the resistance.

Agreed - I'm sure that Mr. Potter had some really good grinds for specific applicaitons. The rub for me is with just the lift number I have no way of knowing if that application is compatible or even close to compatible with my needs. When I talked with Ron I was able to give him some very detailed info about my engine and needs and we ultimately ended up with the L6 grind. Without that insight I have no idea as to whether the Potter cam will work for me or not. My guess is that it was designed for high compression NA applications so it likely wouldn't work at all for me, but I have no way of knowing.

Well that sounds better.

It looks like there is no donation requirement for the vendor's forum, so I'll retract my statement.

Not recently - I'm not trying to use the site to advertise and sell a product, either. If you can't understand the difference then I'm not sure what else to say.

Seriously? Pretty sure the bar for being considered a "donating member" is pretty low. Bad form.

Hmmm... that doesn't sound sketchy at all. Wonder if he has permission from Mr. Potter's estate to use his name on this...

Were looking for traditional "side pipes" like these: ...or just an exhaust that exits on the side(s) in front of the rear axle, like this:

What year car is this? I can take a couple pics of my 78 if that helps.