The saga of my Hemi has ended

[Phillip marvetz]

Originally Posted by John Lang

Being a former Hemi Racer,(still have it) I have been taught that with alot of valve spring pressure you should make sure that you run a RADIAL single groove valve lock, as the square cut grooves tend to act like a guiolotine and clip the valve off, but leaving the valve locks in the retainer with the valve stem intact ! Excuse the spelling as i don't know how to spell Gilotine very well ! I learned about the Radial groove valve locks after # 8 Intake valve decieded drop through the top of the Piston ! Shazam,......That's what I was told !..........John

That's pretty much what looks like happened. The square groove in the lock was gone, All the locks on the intake valve show signs of wear while the exhaust locks look brand new ( because they are lol). The fellow that did the heads say's he thinks it was valve float that beat the locks up. This thing had maybe 20 minutes of run time total. I was thinking maybe the locks were not hardened properly but I would think the exhaust locks would be beat also if that was the case.
Thanks for the advice about the radial groove, I'll keep that in mind when ordering up the new parts. Anyone have a single Mopar aluminum head they want to sell?lol