Bought a 96 Tahoe off some kid who spun a rod bearing and decided to put a 383 in it for the family vehicle. Got a smoking deal on a 383 short block and started tearing apart my 93 chevy 1/2 ton stepside, only has bench seat so no room for the kids, took off the heads to put on the 383 and noticed the almost all the valve spring dampers where broken off near the top, now I am running a ZZ4 roller cam with 474/510 but the spring are rated for up to 530 lift. I have been told by some to just remove the dampers and I know that this is not a race engine pushing 8000rpm but I still worry about harmonics if I take the dampers out, plus I would rather not bust a spring and drop a valve. I have read quite a few other posts on other forums that the vortec heads are notorious for this, has anyone else had this problem and does anyone have the solution besides for spending $300 bucks on double race springs and having to have my spring seats milled for a 1.550 spring?
Busted Valve Spring Dampers
- Thread starter Psipher
- Start date
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livingez_123
Full Access Member
You don't have to spend $300 for a good set of springs, you need to do more shopping.
Comp Cams has them anywhere from $80-up
Comp Cams has them anywhere from $80-up
SunlitComet
OBS Jedi-Do Good
So you took the heads off a 1993 TBI engine to put on a 383 to go into a 1996 Tahoe Vortec equipped Tahoe and you are only just worried about the spring dampeners?
I did a vortec head swap and roller cam on the 93 TBI a few years back, was my daily driver until I broke the shell on the transmission. They were the 062 vortec heads that had been ported and polished with 2.00 and 1.5, wasn't a bad little setup.
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