[94SVTCobra|]

My car is a 94 SVT Cobra (#500 of 5009). Bought car 7 years ago with 55,xxx miles on it from original owner. I have put about 7,000 miles on car in 7 years. Tapping in upper portion of motor became increasingly apparent over time. I finally removed intake and rocker covers (i was the first person to remove the intake) and found about half of my valve retainers were worn and shiny due to bottom of the stock crane/ford RR's rubbing the top of the valve retainers during valve opening/compressing. One of the retainers was obviously being rubbed much harder than the others. I replaced that RR that was rubbing the worst and filed the bottom of the rest of the RR's so they would no longer rub. WTF is causing this? Has anyone else with a 94-95 Cobra been through this tapping/rubbing problem like I have? Motor is pretty quiet now, but i'm still F'ing pissed because like I said, I was the first person to go into this motor and now I need to replace most of the retainers. Ford is NO help and neither is SVT they both play stupid, probably because they really are. Crane is ****, don't buy crane, their QC sux.

[driftingvic]

i assume rr stands for roller rocker. the roller rocker shouldn't ever come in contact with the retainer it should alwasy rest on the end of the valve and both the roller and the top of the valve should have a mirror finish on them. and at no time should be be filing anything in your drivetrain by hand.

sounds like your confused

[speedytang]

Usually is caused by the valve guides moving back and forth in the head.

[94SVTCobra|]

driftinvic, you are the confused one, and you obviously do not own a Cobra nor do you know much about the valve train of the 94 Cobra. I know that this S*** is not SUPPOSED to happen. if crane and ford would make quality products, I wouldn't have to file the f****** ends (sides of the end) of the RR's now would I. To further prove my point, ford sent me that first replacement crane RR and it was out of spec, and once I proved this to Ford, they sent me another but that one has an oil hole the passes straight through , unlike the other 15 that have a 90' bend in the oil hole to direct the oil to the base of the RR instead of to the underside of the valve cover.

speedytang: are you serious, on a car w/ 60K. If this were happening, wouldn't the motor run like s*it? Mine didn't , it ran strong and still does.

[driftingvic]

i dont have a cobra but i do have a set of cobra rr take offs on my car and i dont have this problem. mine do tick slightly but its my understandings that all rr are "noisy" they guy that had the car before you prolly ragged the piss out of it and they where loose and you torquing them all down is what made it quieter.

[speedytang]

My 95 Cobra-GT40 heads only had 33k miles on them when I found 2 exhaust valves wearing wrong and I could move the valve guides in the head. Ford replaced that head and about 8k miles later the other head started to tap and they replaced it. I finally gave up after the warranty ended and put aftermarket heads on the car and gave my brother the GT40 heads. He still uses them today and both heads tap so we are going to put a set of E7 Ported heads on it when he gets a gasket set since I have the heads and he really does not have the money. He is starting to use oil so I figure the guides are really worn bad now.

[94SVTCobra|]

driftingvic: It is possible that the car was rode hard before I bought it but none of the RR bolts were loose of under torqued when I removed them to file them. I think you are still slightly missing what is exactly going on: if you take one of the crane/ford RR's off and hold it upside down in your hand, and look at the "meat" of the RR body on either side of the roller wheel/tip, that meat on either side of the "wheel" is rubbing the top of the retainer and rubbing the retainer raw, the distance from the end of that wheel (where the wheel touches the valve stem) to the top of the "meat" of the RR body is different on every RR that I have. When looking at the RR's on my car, the wheel tip on each of my 16 of my RR's is in a differtent location in relation to the body of the RR, some wheel tips are high and some wheel tips of the RR's are low. The RR's that have the least measured distance between the wheel tip and the body of the RR (which is on both sides of the tip and up slightly) do NOT rub the respective retainers but those RR's with the greater measured distance between the wheel tip and the bottom of the RR body all rub the respective retainers. I filed off a little of the bottom of the RR body and the RR's no longer rub those retainers where I filed. The problem is the variance in location of the wheel tip pin in relation to the underside of the RR body. I think the whole problem is those S***ty crane RR's, the body of those crane RR's should never rub the top of the valve spring retainer no matter what else is going on with the valve train.