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Engine Building & OverhaulingAll you ever wanted to know about building and rebuilding engines in here! Remember to post your model-specific questions in the correct section.
Recently tried my hand at building up an engine, didn’t go so well, ended up mushrooming 80% of my pushrods and bending one into a s shape. It’s a 200k+ lm7 and was a $600 cam kit that came with everything. So not top quality stuff, and a bunch of mix matched parts. Didn’t even think of needed to measure pushrod length since everything came in the kit together. But after peeling everything out dingle ball honing lifter ports and moving up to morell 7177 lifters I measured zero lash added recommended preload bought a couple experiment 3/8” rods to see if 3/8” would fit in my application and now I can slightly lift rocker tips off valves with a tiny bit of force. Should you be able to do this?
Last edited by Zarasesphlamel; Jan 8, 2026 at 6:42 PM.