piston to valve clearance

[oosmytoo]

hey guys I tried checking piston to valve clearance on my new motor. heres what I have, DSS racing 331 with dish pistons, stg 1 cam, twisted wedge heads.
I went ahead and installed those dummy valve springs, put a piece of clay about 3/8" thick on all pistons, then assembled everything, turned it two revolutions. pulled it all apart and the valves never touched the clay.
so I was wondering if i did something wrong? Or do you think im ok to continue assembling it?

 

[94gts]

i have no idea what dummy valves are. i put my heads on with a couple bolts and turned the motor over

 

[oosmytoo]

there just springs that have hardly any tension on them, so the dont compress the lifter.

 

[klapdout]

with dish pistons and just a tfstage1 cam, you should have alot of clearance, so that doesent surprise me at all, go on with assembly your good =]

 

[BlownFiveLiter]

I agree with klapdout. I'm running the stage 1 with factory pistons, so with dished you probably have a ton of clearance. Planning on turning up the boost on that baby, eh?

 

[Zero Signal]

I tried the clay method and found it annoying and too much work.

What I finally did was use the dummy springs with a pushrod and rocker, put a dial indicator on the rocker (directly over valve tip) then just pushed the rocker down untill the valve touched the piston and recorded the clearance. I tested it at every crank angle and found the minimum clearance. I liked that way better becuase you can do it after fully torqing the heads on for the most realistic results.

Clearance of more than 3/8" sounds wrong though. I don't want to insult your intellegence, but make sure the rest of the valvetrain is attached. Just the first, simplest check.

 

[94CobraPace]

My 1st thought is are the dummy springs strong enought to put a dent in the clay?