Ti Vale Retainers. All Hype?
 

So, I'm looking at valve springs, to make a healthy revver. Ferrea is out of the business, Crower starts at insane seat pressures and goes higher, so the choices I'm liking (though open to suggestion) are SuperTech and Eibach.

The super tech kits are 9.4 lb/mm (single) and 12.1 (dual) with 56 and 75 lbs seat force respectively.

As best I can gather, stock is ~8 (7.5?) lb/mm.

The Eibach seems pretty ideal to me - 11.1 lb/in (single, 11.4 dual) with 66 lbs seat pressure. Which seems enough for the shorter duration VVT cams, and would allow stupid high revs (9,500 I'm sure), without putting too much load on the cams.

The trouble is, while the Eibach kit is a lot cheaper (like half price) it doesn't have the Ti retainers. But, what do they really save you?

Probably 15 grams (~2/3 the mass of the retainer)? The weight of the entire reciprocating mass includes:

Valve, retainer, clips (what are those even called?), tappet, shim, and figure half the spring. So, if 15 grams out of...???

Does anyone know what all that weighs? It sounds like it's going to be a 5% mass decrease, and the stiffer springs will handle the difference.

Any ideas?

Some reading for you. No personal experience or input, just what other communities have discussed in the past.

http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/cyli...ged-9-9-a.html

I don't remember the individual weights, but when I used the complete supertech kit and mms shim under buckets on the 1.6 I built it weighed out to almost exactly 1 lb weight cut. I believe it rounded out to like a 50% drop in valvetrain weight. I can't even begin to tell you how much that motor loves to rev. Brgracer and scott can both speak to that.

As far as the retainers, they don't save a ton of weight alone. What you need to be more concerned about is if the stock retainers are compatible with the springs you pick.

This is the part where I point out that I have the supertech singles with retainers for sale for less than retail.

What a shill. :P

That's not a lot of weight. I have a feeling, like you're saying, shim under bucket is the way to go, but I don't think I want to drop a grand or whatever it is. Plus I have all these shims, what would I do with them?

I guess I'll have to go home, weigh a full setup, but even if I went to MASSLESS retainers, it would still only buy me 10%. Probably less.

Weird how several of the comments there were about them failing.

Wow, I read like 4 threads on this, and I think it all comes down to the same thing - if the retainer isn't just the right shape, you're going to have issues. Your gains seem to be pretty close to mythical.

The only down side to stiffer cam springs is a couple HP loss and the possibility of wiping the cam. I'm thinking the slightly heavier spring will more than overcome the mass

(light assembly weight)/(stock assembly weight) = (Spring Force light) / (spring force heavy)

Assuming there's nothing weird with integrating of F=-kx? Which means a spring that's 11.1 lbs/mm verses one that's 9.4 lbs/mm (sure, this will work out) could drive an 18% heavier valve train at the exact same speed.

So, if I could save 50%, hands down, it's the way to go!! If I save 5 or even 10% weight by putting in Ti retainers and give up on 18% more force, I've got a lower reving motor.

Am I missing something?

Nope, that was what I wanted to express. Ti retainers seem to be about the same as align-boring after main studs. 50/50. If the gains aren't good enough that they offset a *supposed* 50% likelihood of failure, then they aren't worth rolling the dice on. I had a set, and I got rid of them because they were going in a street car and I didn't know for sure.

The SUB lifters cost like $200-250, then get a set of 6mm lash caps on ebay for like $10. Use a diamond coated knife sharpener and grind the tops in a figure 8. You won't find ANYTHING else that can grind them as quickly for as cheap. They are made of hardened tool steel. It takes fucking forever. You'll spend an entire weekend grinding, measuring, grinding some more. But its cheap as fuck if you're not a moron, which I know you are not.

It helps a lot to have the head on your kitchen table with the cams out. Then you can put in 1 lifter at a time and go one by one.

You already have cams for solid lifters, so you don't NEED any upgrade there per say. Its 100% a worthwhile upgrade if you can diy and have a full helping of common sense and know how.

The retainers are not just about loosing reciprocating mass they are about valve weight, at higher revs your valves will have a better chance of closing because there is less weight for the spring to push closed. = less valve float. The LS7 has a 7k red line and the valves are huge. to accomplish this they use full titanium valves as well as retainers, I know its not the best example because its a push rod motor with roller lifters but I think you get the idea.

The lash caps are for setting the valve lash? Take the place of the adjusters?

Do you then you use same factory springs? Is that where you gain your weight, then, the smaller shim?

The SUB lifters are basically a "cup" with a pintle-like thing protruding from the inner center, downward toward the base. This part is what makes contact with the top of the valve to push it open. The lash caps sit on the pintle on a 1.6 because the valve stem above the keepers is not tall enough. On a 1.8 ther should be room to fit it on the vlave stem. Either way it doesn't matter much, its never coming out once assembled. You grind the top of the cap to give you your clearance. MMS sells lash caps in various sizes. These will work on a1.8, although they are expensive as all hell. On a 1.6 is is completely necessary to grind your own caps because the MMS ones will not give you a small enough clearance because the difference in stem length. I could draw you a picture in paint, but if you go on the miataroadster forum I swear I remember bill having a nice pic made up of how it all goes together.

They are compatible with any springs, they are just lifters like any other solid lifter. The difference is that its a ton lighter because its mostly hollow and uses a very small lash cap. The caps can't weigh but a few grams each. The weight came a lot from the smaller shim, but also the lifter itself has much less mass.

ty y8s.

as seen in that pic, its basically an empty bucket. The top ans dies are like 2mm thick. Top might be a little more, but not much.

That's just what the NB tappets look like anyway, sans the spacer. But they have that same hollow bore with a protrusion to contact the valve.

I weighed everything, the whole chain (valves, shims, tappets, retainers, clip things - per side, so all the intakes, or all the exhausts) is ~1300 grams (~1290 ex, 1310 in). The retainers are ~180 grams, so saving 2/3 is 120 which is ~8-9% weight savings. I was shocked the valves were so light. I should add in 1/2 - 1/4 the spring mass, but I didn't, to keep it as favorable as possible. The +1 valves were heavier, on the order of 30 (ex) - 40 (in) grams more.

So, it would seem I'd need springs around 12% heavier than the same set up with the supertech - which the eibachs are, but not by the margin I was hoping for. Of course, 1/3 of that is the heavier valves.

Either way, I'm good, so while I have 18% heavier springs to drive (some of that energy HAS to come back, they are springs after all!!!), overall this should be higher RPM, without resorting to dual springs, and at $170 I can't bitch.

The

Better numbers later, this is from memory. I do remember the 9% being solid, though.

I wish matt could weigh that lifter for you. I think the difference is more significant than you think. The SOB lifter's shims are gigantic by comparison. In both thickness and diameter.

Matt, or anyone who can handle such things:
Do you have the spring specs for the VVT heads? I'm used to the springs being identical ex vs in. Not so on this head. It looked like the intake got beefier springs.

I would assume in a VVT engine manual, there's an inspection procedure for the valves, which must have a seat pressure measurement and a spring rate measurement. See if you can find that page and post it - I want to know if I just bought springs worse than stock. :-)

Thanks!! Oh, if you have a VVT repair manual, I'd like to see it anyway, I don't know what the valve lash, etc, is anyway.

Oh, interesting... My numbers are... Different. The valves I measured only 8, but everything else I measured 16. Which means the valves ARE much more important as I originally thought.

Data to follow.

I know a bag of 16 shim under bucket lifters is about a pound. shipping weight. in other words, they're not here anymore.

i do have a spare 01 head but dont want to disassemble it.

send me your email and I'll email you the engine mechanical section.

yeah..they are being ship to my engine builder!

my engine builder told me ti valve retainers is kinda waste of money. Miata engine is not like Honda motors which won't get power after 6.5K ~ 7k RPM.

Stop typing, its a waste of words.

Heh, that's true too.

I'm still thinking, till your timing belt snaps, just go with bigger springs. :-)

Hmm, the numbers are in my other pants. And I still don't have the numbers for the stock springs. When I get them, I've got it all worked out - including which springs with how much extra/shaved weight are equivalent. Very easy to rank them, as soon as I find the OEM spring rates.

Ok, here's my spread sheet
Note I guessed on the Ti retainer



Note here I guessed on the stock spring rates. I have no idea what they are. I might have swapped the seat force on the two dual spring set ups, but as it is, they are virtually identical. The stock spring seat force (for a pre-vvt) is from memory, I'll fix this later, but I think it's right.

I'm not sure what to do with some of these, they claim a "seat force" but it's taken at a different number, I don't know if that implies different retainers? For instance, the Eibach doubles are at a length of ~34mm verses the stock 38.5mm. Which, if you do the math, leaves a seat force at the stock length of only ~25 lbs, half of stock and perhaps not enough to work.

Anyway, this gives you a flavor of what I'm discovering, when I update it with spring rates from different years, we should actually understand what's going on and know what we're getting into when we upgrade springs.

Two things to notice:

1) The VVT springs are NOT identical. Pre-VVT, they are speced exactly the same, but in my VVT head the intakes are painted yellow, are physically longer (free length) and more beefy and weigh more. So I'm not sure I will see the gains I would on a '99 head with aftermarket springs, but I'll still get something. I wonder when FM says "9,000 RPM" if it's for the 99 cams, the vvt cams, or the MSM cams.

2) "% change" is the difference in weight, so bigger valves are 2 or 6% heavier, but the "springs" columns are the difference in weight divided by the change in spring to give you an instantaneous acceleration. In actuality, this is a bit of a simplification, since your movement in a given time is quadratic with time, AND it's not taking into account the difference in seat force from set to set, which is a problem for me as mentioned above. But I believe you're ok looking at this number as a guide to tell you what the acceleration will be at any point, so for instance eibach single springs with +1 valves are 31% faster than stock compared to supertech single springs and lightweight retainers which are 34% faster than stock, or overall about the same (the net effects cancel, but one way you get bigger valves).

So the plot thickens, quite a bit. I got numbers back from my machinist, and went to the SuperTech website to see what they have for solid info.

The first thing I noticed is they have two sets of dual springs, a 63lb seat pressure, 9.6 lb/mm set, and a 74 lbs seat pressure, 12.1 lbs/mm set up. Both of these in addition to the 56 lb/9.4 single which FM and others sell.

It's interesting they have that dual spring set up which is so low.

The other thing I noticed, if you do the math on their spring rates, they come out low. In fact, the high spring rate dual calculates out to be 9.8 lbs/mm while they claim 12.1. The only way this makes sense to me is with a highly progressive spring.

Which means the high spring rate springs are really only pushing that hard up at the top of the lobe (hence the wiping), but it also means it's a bit misleading to calculate everything on "k=(f2-f1)/(x2-x1)". I still think it's constructive, though.

The big news is I got the factory springs measured.

Spring Rate (in) 7.58
Spring Rate (ex) 6.83
Seat Force lbs 42
Seat Dist mm 39
Open Force IN 133
Open Dist IN 27
Open Force EX 124
Open Dist EX 27

Note that represents 12mm of max lift, quite a bit more than stock, actually, more than all but the most aggressive, race only cams.


So the SuperTechs are already 35% higher than stock (though it's interesting to note that mazda used 11% stiffer springs on their aggressive intake cam.

What worries me a bit, personally in my own situation, is that these eibachs I got will be too stiff. If they are not progressive, I suppose I am ok (who needs the extra force on the tip, when the valve is moving slowly anyway? It would seem you would want high seat pressure and really no increase when you are on the tip of the love??), because it means they are not too high. If they have the same sort of "progressive factor" which ST uses, then the "effective" spring rate is 14.2 lb/mm. Which I really doubt, but if it is, SHEESH!

Perhaps I'm onto something - the Eibach claims 200 lbs at only 27 mm?? Again I run the risk of linearlizing a problem away, but... OEM lift is 9.4/8.9mm.

For completeness:
Basically, with my bigger valves, the Eibach singles will put me about where the Ti SuperTech single will. I.E. Intake is 38% improves and the Ex is about 61% improved. SuperTech looks like 33/48. I guess if I had it my way, I would want a 10% lighter spring for the exhaust, to move accurately match the OEM set up. When I get motivated, I'll look at the peak force (i.e. at full open for both cams), perhaps I'll learn the exhaust springs aren't as bad as I thought since they don't open as far, but the percentage change over stock will be about the same.

Anyway. Hope this helps someone. Or gets someone who knows more to join in.