Jazstott's 3.4/3400 hybrid

[jazstott]

Thanks for the reply Xpbr! I'm actually glad the 3400 rockers aren't adjustable, less guess work for me... lol. Hopefully I'll have this thing together by the end of the year, I didn't realize porting & polishing took so much time, especially for me since it's my first time doing it.

[xpbr2000]

ha anytime you polish it takes forever it seems. and doing it by hand is just awful to me lol.

so the 3400 are tts like 3800? i thought the 3.4 stock motor was adjustable.

[fasteddi]

There is no valve lash on a gen 3 head if thats what you have on there. You would just bolt down you heads to spec, bolt down the fulcrum rockers to spec, toss in the lifters, take your pushrod checker and measure the distance between the 2. Then add .040 as a rule of thumb to that distance for lifter preload. I have comp cam lifters and they call for .040 for a preload. Thats what most companies are happy seeing.

[fasteddi]

If you have gen 3 heads on a 3.4l block your numbers should be somewhere arround this:

Lengths
6.289" exhaust
5.939" intake

[jazstott]

Fast Eddi, have I told you how much you f***in' rock?! I gathered all that after an hour of internet searching, lol, but wasn't at all confident that my research was 100%. I am thinking too much into it. Just so you know, you are still going to be my #1 go-to guy for this, hope you don't mind, lol. And yes, Gen 3 heads & everything up off of a 2000 Grand Am going on a 95 3.4 Camaro block. On the preload, I've seen Ben from WOT-Tech post that it should be .073 as that is half the travel of the lifter inside the tappet. Everywhere else I've looked says between .020 & .060. So I'm going with what you said. I'm having a valve job done as there is pitting on the exhaust valves & the intake seats, weird, in my opinion. Two questions, for now, after I soak the lifters do I pump them up manually as some suggest? Secondly I noticed the 3400 had pushrod guides bolted to the block & the guides on the Camaro motor were bolted to the heads. Obviously I won't have guides at all, soooo, do I get hardened pushrods? Non-hardened? Does it even really matter? I seem to have an abundance of time to work on this project so hopefully (fingers crossed) I will have it done before the end of the year.
Thanks for everybody's replies & continued support as I know this seems to be taking forever.

[xpbr2000]

anything that takes time it well worth the effort at the end

[fasteddi]

No you wont use any push rod guides... so you dont need hardened pushrods. I got my rods from WOT as well, and asked for non hardened ones, cost less as well IIRC. Also i never messed with the lifters. I just soaked them over night, then tossed them in. Many cam changes over the years and always worked like a charm.

[jazstott]

Thanks, that's what I thought. I am assuming that my lengths should be exactly the same as yours, if we have the same size cam base circles. Getting ready to port & polish the other head, should go a lot faster now that I have a little experience & technique down. Will post pics soon. @ xpbr, the rockers on the old 3.4 iron heads are adjustable I believe, but not on the aluminum 3X00 heads. Starting to reignite my excitement again, I have some more questions, but figured I'd wait until I get to those points on my motor, no sense in cluttering up the forum, I gotta stop thinking to far ahead, 1 step at a time...lol

[jazstott]

Crap, just remembered, Fast Eddie, are those push rod measurements from tip to tip?

[xpbr2000]

That's good info. I'm not as familiar with the 3400 or the 3.4. however if you asked my a bolt size anywhere on the motor i could just about tell you