valve covers

gremlin1945 wrote: one more

Private seller.He seemed to disappear after I bought them.

74hornet wrote: i bought those same ones of ebay too,in my hornet i had to move my brake lines and notch and reweld right valve cover to clear firewall bump and had to move throttle cable up over an inch to clear left cover.the covers are ok for the price if stick shifter was making more i would have bought his.i bought sce valve gaskets for them but on break in they came apart and caused a oil fire,best ones i found were edelbrock,glued them to covers and no leaks.

The rubber ones work for me with sheetmetal covers built by Stickshifter, and I've taken them off a number of times over the last 3 years.

(that appears to be a nitrous solenoid on '74Hornet's engine?)

Excuse me for posting this longer, rebellious type reply; if you want me to delete it and remove it from your thread, PM me & I will do it.

Taking a larger perspective on this thread and having a heart for any fellow AMC comrade, there is one aspect of valve cover selection for AM's '66-'91 V8 engines which I don't hear much about but is rather remarkable nonetheless: the stock AMV8's curved top valve cover is a functional working component of the oil system.

I learned this a long time ago by observing the sludge deposits inside several used (very) AM V8s -the sludge deposits clearly show a distinct spray pattern from the pushrods to the valve springs (those areas will appear to be washed clean)

Noticing this is one thing, but it dawned on me that AM's '66-'91 V8 was the only engine I knew of that had this feature... and that this element (the curved top stock valve cover which functions as a working oil deflector to lube and cool the valve springs) is another positive attribute of this engine's oil system design.

Positive attribute? Of the stock oil system? ...well, yeah.

...another positive attribute is that the AMV8 comes with 'high flow' sized oil pump gears, as compared to the shorter '6 cylinder sized' gears found as stock equipment in SBC Gen 1 engines.

Looking at a cutaway view shows what I'm saying a different way. Here's the link to my PRO-AMC website where I have collected cutaway views of many different V8 engines in order to show how AMC's V8 engine designs compare rather favorably to their appropriate competitors:

http://amcramblermarlin.1colony.com/photo2.html

It does appear that the stock Chevy Gen 1 valve covers would deflect oil spurts from the pushrods back down on the valves also ..but because of the cramped space, not necessarily because of a carefully engineered design.

We may clearly see, by noticing how close the SBC Gen 1 valve cover is to the rocker arms, why buying tall aftermarket valve covers became a big trend... because of Chevy's 'manufactured popularity' = way more cars manufactured per year (as in millions, literally) than AMC could ever make ...Ford too (I remember when this trend started, and I remember myself thinking 'they just want the look of a race valve cover made for a stud girdle but most Chevy people are just wearing them like young girls might wear falsies')

...and -that's what they tend to think about AMCers! > they might even think AMC's '68-'70 AMX is just a silly attempt to make a 'real' sports car... (most people have been brainwashed to think AMCs are a joke; truly)

(but AMC's AMX won SAE's 'Best Engineered Car of the Year' award two years in a row in '69 & '70 > not Camaro, not Mustang, not even Porsche, Mercedes or Ferrari! *and it's stuff like this that if we AMCers don't talk about it how will they ever know anything different?)

IMO? Yes; the valve covers shown here look great on the ...304 with 290 heads

(I'm assuming they are 'Typhoon 290' 10 to 1 high compression heads ...and there could be a benefit by running the smallest diameter pre-made headers with the better fitting flanges made for rectangle exhaust port outlet shape)

~but~ IMO (uh oh) the money would be better spent on putting in the higher rpm valve train parts that already fit under the stock better performing valve covers (because the curved top valve covers are worth keeping for their better oil defection design)

Like AM's very own hop up book says, by making those mods they show only in the first section (to get approx 1000 more rpm out of the stock full production engines) this will be enough to put many 'other make' challengers behind (move the redline from 5000 to 6000)

One can do it with 290 and 304 engines but not by wearing falsies.

I'd say, after you've added all the appropriate higher rpm valve seals (on the new machined stems, which must be done to work with any cam having more than .440" lift ...as stated in PAS) higher rate springs, lighter stronger keepers and retainers, roller rocker arms, chrome moly pushrods and slightly better anti-pump up lifters ~then~ when you start getting bored with blowing away big block Novas... ~then~ you might start dressing up the engine to look like it's built to spin 8000 rpm? (those tall covers for AMCs are to make room for stud girdles)

On AM V8s? For 99% of all 'hobby' oriented AMCers? There's already enough room under the stock better oiling valve covers. Spend your money smarter and make it beat the Chevys and Fords at your local dragstrip on Saturday night.

...nothing could be more fun or rewarding for all your hard work IMO!

...it would be less rewarding to spend your hard earned money of dress up items that make it look like a race engine but only to get beat by a Camaro or Mustang everytime (BUMMER)

Back in the days when I built my first 365 CID AM V8 'race engine' made to turn 7000 rpm (going by the book Performance American Style) I did it by putting mild pocket ported 'Typhoon' high compression heads on a re-balanced TRW forged piston nodular iron bottom end and used a 6800 rpm Sig Erson 'high flow II' cam and kit... (I ported the rectangle exhaust port outlets to have a more dog leg shape and used fully ported and lightened AMV8 high flow ex manifolds)

Spending $3000 on an engine way back in '83 was a lot of money and that's when I drew up the 'AMC Oil System Modifications' pages because I did not want to see my engine spin a rod bearing (to kill it; when an AM nodular iron rod spins a bearing at high rpm... it's basically all over -the engine is toast because the rod shatters into a thousand pieces and all the bits instantly flow through the oil system -not like a forged rod engine)

...back then, we thought AMC would never go out of business & I myself tore up so many nodular iron crank and rod AM V8s I can't remember ...but I remember throwing the junk/destroyed engines into the river (near a dam), just to watch them make a big splash in the water

But, wow, spending the money on getting the whole valvetrain set up for higher rpm was well worth it; that engine would wind up and spin like it had no apparent redline...

I even began to have problems with my tires on that car instead (?) yeah! Get this: everytime I could find a long wide open space where I could reasonably take the car up to top speed and 'let it all hang out' ...my tires would go flat ...because after 'burying the speedometer' centrifugal force would make the flat repair plugs come out!!!!!! (for a similar reason, this is why NHRA rules demand metal only air valves on the race car's wheel rims = so the stems don't come out from centrifugal force!)

Moral of the story?

-the stock valve covers already have enough room and can take a valve train that will enable way more rpm than most people will ever build the bottom end for

-the stock valve covers provide better oiling and cooling (as in oil cooling) for the valve springs but the hardcore AMCers don't ever mention it so most softcore AMCers have never heard of it

...but hey, I'm definitely not your enemy; I'm a fellow comrade AMCer, and who am I to tell anyone what to do; it's your life, your  choice, they look great & good luck (HA! > make your own good luck by trying harder than the other couch potatoes!)

...but I hope you don't spend lots of money putting on falsies and still get beat by another Camaro or Mustang ARGH!