Supertech +1mm valve job roadblock
 

Hey guys, I just got off the phone with my machinist. He has my 99 head which he just skim cut, 3 way valve jobbed, new guides, seals, etc. I'm doing the supertech +1mm valves on both intake and exhaust and a shim under bucket solid lifter conversion. I got the lifters from Mazda motorsports and the lash caps are supertech. I ordered the shortest ones possible because the valves are manufactured +1mm in length for whatever reason. I'm using stock cams. BUT:fael:>>>>> my issue is when he was about to tip the valves he noticed the amount he needs to tip them is going to cause the lash cap to come in contact with the keepers - PROBLEM. So idk what my options are besides trying to source shorter lash caps (or shorten them somehow) or get my cams reground to give me more clearance. This, to my knowledge, was a virgin head so unless he royally screwed up the valve job and took too much off idk what happened. Any one else have this issue. Here's a shitty picture from him (before he grinds anything) for you TL/DR people.

the picture is of the valve with a lash cap sitting on top of it before getting tipped or ground or whatever you wanna call it.

Can you get caps that fit the bucket, or must it sit on the valve?

That I don't know. Maybe. I thought these were the only ones. I'll check.

Sorry, I'm not on the up and up with Mazda Motorsports stuff. That's an Aidan question. I'm building with supertech.

Cam Lifter Miata

949 advertises using caps under the post of the bucket. I'm having difficulty getting to the SUB thread on mobile

If you have mazda SUBs the only place I know of that sells 5.6mm lash caps is Lash Cap Shims

I got the thinnest set available at the time from Supertech and they were the 1.35mm ones. And they are still way to close to the keepers. I need even thinner ones to create a bigger distance between the keeper and the end of the valve (where the shim goes). I think these are the only style that work right. As the buckets are cast with a ground flat where the shim contacts it. No bore or boss to go around. Seems like I'm sol until I find thinner shims or grind then down myself as my machine shop can't figure out how...

The 5.6mm shim fits on the bucket stem.

Oh interesting. Ok I'll have to check those out. This has been a nightmare

Or put them on the bucket stems...

He's gotta take 30thou(.030") off the valve to make it for right. My current shim or lash cap is 53thou(.053") so that would make the valve assembly 23 too short. What I really need is shorter shims.

Or are you saying put the lash caps on the buckets. I think he tried that but they didn't fit because the OD if the bucket boss is cast. I guess I could ask him to machine each bucket to get the lash cap to fit.

Good reason to regarding the cams to something more fun.
I failed with a similar setup and the lash caps were made wafer thin to get it to work.
Unsure if the retainer split or the lash cap collapsed first when I dropped that valve.
With cams ground to 33mm base circle everything just starts to make sense. :)

Holy fuck. Can you not fucking read?

Ok I told him to try harder and now they do fit upside down on the bottom of the lifter and now he can grind what is needed off the valve. Thanks for the help guys.

Hope they don't snap.

I can fucking read. Jesus. I wasn't at the shop. All I had to go by was what he was telling me. I didn't have the shit in my hands. I told him to try that and he told me he was worried about the od being cast and then not sitting right.

The 5.5 mm shims don't fit on the MMD buckets. Someone has had one crack from forcing it on. The 6mm shims are very loose on the buckets. Not the best idea. But can be done.

5.6mm shims listed above do fit on the MMD buckets.

As above. Hopefully your lash caps don't break

What the valves? I have no clue about how this works. I've never built a head with these components and they came with no information on how to fit them and the company has no information on their website about it or the harness of each component. What is he supposed to be grinding the lash cap down because that seems ridiculous. I literally bought the smallest ones possible.

So after further investigation on his part he decided the 1.35mm caps fit on the bottom of the lifters. Basically upside down from how I thought they would go (on the top of the valve) but we were worried about the harness of the valve and it breaking.

So yeah this makes sense. But I feel like they should be someone designed to fit a stock cam with the smallest caps. And with a regrind you'd end up more towards to thicker caps. I didn't really wanna spend another $600 and 4 weeks on cams. But if that's the only way. Idk how I missed that with my initial research.

Ohhhh. I'm an idiot. Now I get why you got mad. These are 5.6mm in diameter, and I can get thinner ones. He'd still need to tip off about 15thou even with 1mm caps. Duhhhhh. I totally miss understood that. Fuckkk.

If you have caps that fit over the stem of the bucket, tip the valve to set clearance.

Yessir. Now I got it. Sorry for being a little slow there for a minute. I'm going to double check with him that those fit over the buckets without being too tight otherwise I'll have to get the 5.6mm bore ones. Thanks for the help.

so i got my machinist to measure the boss on the bottom of the lifters/buckets. most of them measured .219" a few were .220" which is exactly 5.6mm. That might be a bit tight. So i'm going to stick with my 6.0mm lash caps and see how it goes. The machinist was comfortable with how they fit and he deals with rebuilding engines way more than me so i'm taking his word for it. I'll be out the lookout for 5.7mm (15/64 - which i highly doubt anyone makes) lash caps as those would be more of an ideal fit.

The 5.6mm lash caps are known to fit on MMD buckets.

https://www.miataturbo.net/engine-pe...uestion-92281/

yeah i get that, and read that. mine just measured alittle on the high as in almost exactly 5.6mm, i highly doubt whoever designed these put a +/- .01mm tolerance on the bucket stem. you saying yours measured 5.56mm is great and i'm sure the 5.6mm caps fit great on yours. Because mine seem to be on the high or the tolerance, i dont want to have the 5.5mm problem with the 5.6mms. but i'm going to order the 5.6mm ones anyways and possibly swap them out after i get my head back. I skimmed that thread the other day but i guess i should have read it better because i missed a few things...

so did you end up getting supertech to send you the right sized caps or what?

No. I used 6mm caps on the valve.