guide plate question-please read
 

Hey guys! I broke down and had my heads milled and drilled to accept 7/16 rocker studs. I bought edelbrock guideplates, and comp cams pro magnum roller rockers. The problem(s) i am having is this:

One guideplate stud hole on every guideplate had to be enlargened in order to get the studs to screw into the heads while the guide plate was in place. The blue arrow in the picture below shows which hole had to be oblonged. The machine shop i brought it to(powered by Ford) said that i would have to do this. Is this normal?

The slots to keep the pushrods in alignment doesn't come close to centering the rocker arm over the valve stem. The Intake rocker arm tip is off to the left side of the valve stem and the Exhaust rocker arm tip is off to the right side of the valve stem. Now, i took one of the guideplates and removed some metal from the outer slot edge(yellow arrow) and the rocker arm is now centered, but it now has EXTRA room to move left and right. The Red arrow in the picture shows where metal needs to be added to move the rocker arm in the right place without having all that extra room. I assume this isn't ok to run the engine with those enlarged pushrod guide slots?

Sorry for the length of the post, I am just a bit confused about paying $125 for machine work on a perfectly good set of heads that won't be able to be used anymore.. Is there a company that specializes in single guideplates, like one for each stud unlike one big plate for 2 studs?
http://www.allied.org/~chaos/guideplate.JPG

thanks for your time
dave

just cut them in half... it's a common problem...alot of places use SBC guideplates because they are almost the same....

good idea about cutting the guide plates but my concern is the guide plates turning and the pushrod not being centered on the rocker arm after initial installation and high rpm shifts.

they wont move... use a sealer or loctite on the studs... they go into the water jacket... rpm wont matter... if the guide plate comes loose... it will be because the rocker stud is loose...

or get a different set of guide plates...

sound reasonable and logical to me great idea.

I was told by a machine shop that you don't need to use guideplates or aftermarket studs with aluminum roller rockers if the cam lift doesn't exceed .520
I got a set of proform roller rockers for a 355 sbc, my heads are still at the machine shop, should I have them machine and tap the heads for guideplates/studs or should I be ok?

ED ISKENDERIAN ADJUSTABLE GUIDEPLATES
 

Ok, i found the ultimate cure for this headache. What i needed what a 2 peice guideplate that you could adjust left and right. ISKY makes 'adjustable' guideplates, they are two peice. One of the two peices has a recieving slot, and the other slides in and out of the recieving slot. I have to say, these are of much better quality in construction and adjustability. Even though these plates are two peice they cannot spin circles because they lock together. The edelbrock guideplates were bowed in the middle, my guess is poor stamping technique.

thanks
dave

forgot to post the picture! :)
http://www.allied.org/~chaos/iskyguideplate.jpg

MetalMilitia,

That is a killer idea! Do you have a part # for those plates? I wish I knew about them a year ago, instead I had mine machined to be adjustable. Thanks,

Andy

The Part # is 200-AGP 'Adjustable Guide Plates' Remember since these are of metal form, they can be welded together for extra strength! Has anyone used the comp pro magnum r.r.'s? It seems like the pushrod seat needs to be broken in before you can actually adjust true valve lash. is this correct?

thanks
dave