Predator 212 Hemi Won't Idle After Valve Lash Adjustment

[KMEFA]

Yep valve grinding compound would work even better! Personally I’d keep toothpaste far away from my engines.

Remnants of valve grinding compound will destroy an engine ''way'' quicker than toothpaste would.
Also,,
valve grinding compound ''even diluted with oil'', would leave the alum. bore finish ''very rough'',, & probably take off to much material in short order also,, potentially leaving the lifter/bore fit sloppy.
Valve grinding compound is basically for hardened steel & stainless ect..

 

[madprofessor]

Dead set against honing or lapping anything as small as that lifter bore. How much is a new pair of lifters, $15? If a lifter won't fall out with the gentlest push (due to oily suction) then replace it. If it was hung up, it's either warped too fine for you to be able to see it, or there's no oil in the passage, or both. Pour a little oil right down the pushrod bore, lather a new lifter in oil, stick it in.
Did you break in that MOD2 cam after install? And the other internals? You have to do that no matter how broken in your rotating assembly already is. What break-in oil did you use? Hope it wasn't one of those zinc additives to regular oil, that has been known to still let lobes fold over. Personally only use $11 per qt. Royal Purple Break-in Oil.

 

[KMEFA]

For kicks,, try the intake lifter in there & let us know how freely that moves, with just putting some light oil on it.

 

[KMEFA]

Dead set against honing or lapping anything as small as that lifter bore. How much is a new pair of lifters, $15? If a lifter won't fall out with the gentlest push (due to oily suction) then replace it. If it was hung up, it's either warped too fine for you to be able to see it, or there's no oil in the passage, or both. Pour a little oil right down the pushrod bore, lather a new lifter in oil, stick it in.
Did you break in that MOD2 cam after install? And the other internals? You have to do that no matter how broken in your rotating assembly already is. What break-in oil did you use? Hope it wasn't one of those zinc additives to regular oil, that has been known to still let lobes fold over. Personally only use $11 per qt. Royal Purple Break-in Oil.

Royal purple is pretty good stuff,, I especially like their offerings for rear ends & manual trans axels ect.

 

[SquidBonez]

Dead set against honing or lapping anything as small as that lifter bore. How much is a new pair of lifters, $15? If a lifter won't fall out with the gentlest push (due to oily suction) then replace it. If it was hung up, it's either warped too fine for you to be able to see it, or there's no oil in the passage, or both. Pour a little oil right down the pushrod bore, lather a new lifter in oil, stick it in.
Did you break in that MOD2 cam after install? And the other internals? You have to do that no matter how broken in your rotating assembly already is. What break-in oil did you use? Hope it wasn't one of those zinc additives to regular oil, that has been known to still let lobes fold over. Personally only use $11 per qt. Royal Purple Break-in Oil.

I just used regular 10w30 Pennzoil and took it easy for a little bit. I did eventually open it up, not sure if I gave the cam enough time to break in or not but the cam is still just fine. And you are correct, they were around $15 for both.

 

[SquidBonez]

I was just thinking - since it will run when I rev it but die when I try to let it idle...could I just maybe turn up the idle speed? Not sure if this would work because the amount it needed to rev was so high it was engaging the torque converter...also it was idling at its current setting before this all happened...worth a try or no?

 

[madprofessor]

PLEASE get some sort of break-in assistance before rotating that thing any more. Get Royal Purple from auto parts store (I've always had to order it in from their warehouse), or at least get whatever zinc additive they have for small engines. Drain your old oil real well, start over with some quality straight 30 weight oil and use MORE than the additive's recommendation for mixing.
It's a fallacy that you can't leave break-in oil or additive in the block after a good break-in job. That's really only about the fact that breaking in new parts is supposed to strip off metal, so you must change the "dirty" oil (doesn't need to "look" dirty) afterwards. You can put the same kind of stuff back in new as your oil change. I only use the Royal Purple as an oil change. Predator 212 holds a whopping 1/2 quart. Ain't gonna break the bank.

 

[madprofessor]

Try new lifters with oil change and good break-in stuff before wasting effort on anything else, go from there.

 

[SquidBonez]

Try new lifters with oil change and good break-in stuff before wasting effort on anything else, go from there.

I tried the lifters again since there seems to be nothing wrong with them (and the new ones won't be in until the 28th). They both fit the same. Even if I swap the intake lifter into the exhaust hole and vice versa. When you push them all the way up without the cam or pushrods in they kinda stick. Just put engine assembly lube on them and closed the engine back up. Last thing to check is my timing key. Already re-did my coil gap and set my lash back to stock. I'll get some royal purple in it before I try starting it again.

 

[KMEFA]

I just used regular 10w30 Pennzoil and took it easy for a little bit. I did eventually open it up, not sure if I gave the cam enough time to break in or not but the cam is still just fine. And you are correct, they were around $15 for both.

Reg. Pennzoil is my ''absolute'' ''last choice'' for ''any'' engine,, & think they still put paraffin in it ect.
Tore apart & rebuilt ''many'' of various engines over the years that ran that stuff,, & they were just ''yuck'' inside,, especially the ones that didn't get frequent oil changes.

If you want good ''cheap'' oil for the long haul,, Super tech from Wally world, is actually some pretty good stuff,, & I have watched a couple of You tube vids,, with bearing tests ect. with comparison testing against a few other name brands,, & it did pretty darn good.
I was really surprised !
You can't beat it @ around 3 bucks a qt. for the conventional stuff,, & around 4 something on the Synthetic.

Ran the Syn. 10-30 in my GX -200 Mini bike, all last season,, & also ran that in my Buddies 212 Tillotson one.
We also put over 100 miles on them easy.

 

[madprofessor]

Don't pay any attention to the lifters sticking slightly when jammed all the way up to the block. Instant oily suction there. They never get up in there when the pushrods are in place.
I'm not even aware of any stem diameter difference between intake and exhaust lifters on my hemis, hope there isn't one.
Good for you on the assembly lube. Just remember it acts like well-chewed warm Hubba Bubba gum. I only use it to do things like intentionally make lifters stick in the guide so gravity won't make them fall out when doing internals. Stick washers in place before a bolt-down. Etc.
Don't get insulted here, just going by the natural steps.................You sure that timing key is turned the right way? And moved over tight up against the correct edge of the keyway? Youtube's "The Gray Goat" does a great video for OMB Wareh___e on those with a big proper drawing of an advance key in place that lets even me picture it. Just type Gray Goat in the search bar.
Coil gap .030 - .040 front and rear ends? Those rare earth magnets in the PVL need it to be right, not just a business card between coil and PVL held in place by the magnets until the bolts are tightened.
BY THE WAY!!!...........Anybody know where I can order a couple of magnetic oil drain plugs for the Predators? Love those things!

 

[SquidBonez]

Don't pay any attention to the lifters sticking slightly when jammed all the way up to the block. Instant oily suction there. They never get up in there when the pushrods are in place.
I'm not even aware of any stem diameter difference between intake and exhaust lifters on my hemis, hope there isn't one.
Good for you on the assembly lube. Just remember it acts like well-chewed warm Hubba Bubba gum. I only use it to do things like intentionally make lifters stick in the guide so gravity won't make them fall out when doing internals. Stick washers in place before a bolt-down. Etc.
Don't get insulted here, just going by the natural steps.................You sure that timing key is turned the right way? And moved over tight up against the correct edge of the keyway? Youtube's "The Gray Goat" does a great video for OMB Wareh___e on those with a big proper drawing of an advance key in place that lets even me picture it. Just type Gray Goat in the search bar.
Coil gap .030 - .040 front and rear ends? Those rare earth magnets in the PVL need it to be right, not just a business card between coil and PVL held in place by the magnets until the bolts are tightened.
BY THE WAY!!!...........Anybody know where I can order a couple of magnetic oil drain plugs for the Predators? Love those things!

Yeah I have the coil gap set between 0.03 and 0.04 (closer to 0.03). And no, there is no difference between the two lifters. They're interchangeable. And that's kind of what I assumed about the lifters sucking to the block after messing them. Glad to confirm my suspicions.

 

[SquidBonez]

So I did some more tinkering today...

It's alive!

Checked the timing key and found the flywheel riding on the wrong side of the key.

The gap between the flywheel keyway and the flywheel should be towards the front of the engine, mine was towards the rear (sort of hard to see):

I'm not sure if it somehow got loose or I always had it set wrong. From there I reset the lash back to stock, put some Royal Purple 10w30 in it, and adjusted the idle as needed. I still have some concerns, since I still had to use starting fluid to get it running, but I think that's mostly because it's so cold. The kart originally idled for a bit, backfired through the carb, and then stalled, but once it got warmed up it kept running. I hope this fixed it. Thanks to everyone who has helped me so far!

Only planned modification from here is a GX140 emulsion tube for a slightly richer mixture and a bit of a low end boost.

 

[KMEFA]

I don't like using starting fluid on anything,, glad you got it running though.

 

[SquidBonez]

I don't like using starting fluid on anything,, glad you got it running though.

Why's that? This thing will not start without it.

 

[SquidBonez]

It's running now but still not perfect. Like I said, it won't start without starting fluid and it will still stall out occasionally. Thinking about opening up the coil gap just to see if that helps at all. Will keep you posted.

UPDATE: Increased the coil gap, still have the same issue. Pretty much square 1 again. No idea how it was running before but it's not now. My dad reccomended changing the coil, since he had a similar issue on a riding mower recently. Just ordered one to be safe.

 

[KMEFA]

Starting fluid is ''very'' hard on rods ect.,, especially if you spray a bunch & then it ignites,, especially if you ''don't'' have it turning over while spraying.

If you can't still get it fired off without the SF,, then I think you still have valve train problems,, which is not allowing you to ''pull'' fuel in.

Messing around with the coil gap is really not going to do diddly, being that it will run on SF.

 

[SquidBonez]

Starting fluid is ''very'' hard on rods ect.,, especially if you spray a bunch & then it ignites,, especially if you ''don't'' have it turning over while spraying.

If you can't still get it fired off without the SF,, then I think you still have valve train problems,, which is not allowing you to ''pull'' fuel in.

Messing around with the coil gap is really not going to do diddly, being that it will run on SF.

Should I wait for the emulsion tube to come in before I take it to the shop? Would that help my fueling issues?

 

[KMEFA]

I was thinking you tried another carb on that already ??

How clean is the carb & emulsion tube ect. that's on it ?

One slick trick I came up with for cleaning out those teeny holes,, is guitar strings.
Every time I change strings,, I keep the excess that was trimmed off just for that purpose.
You have different sizes for different holes.
I personally think they work ''a lot'' better than torch tip cleaners,, as the strings wont tear up the holes.

If you don't have guitars, maybe some one you know does,, & has some old strings or pieces of them.

I

 

[SquidBonez]

I was thinking you tried another carb on that already ??

How clean is the carb & emulsion tube ect. that's on it ?

One slick trick I came up with for cleaning out those teeny holes,, is guitar strings.
Every time I change strings,, I keep the excess that was trimmed off just for that purpose.
You have different sizes for different holes.
I personally think they work ''a lot'' better than torch tip cleaners,, as the strings wont tear up the holes.

If you don't have guitars, maybe some one you know does,, & has some old strings or pieces of them.

I

Well the carb is brand new and has a richer jet (from gopowersports) but the emulsion tube is still original.