Spring savers/ shaft collars

I've heard of some teams running shaft collars to keep the rocket from sliding around under high rpm? Indicators are if your pushrod tubes have rub marks in them that your valve train isn't under control. Can anyone elaborate on this ?

 

Jay,
I began using those when we were having push rod failures; they held the damaged push rod in place and continued to open the valve rather than letting it jam off to the side. This prevented banging the blower in many cases as there would not be an over boost of the next cylinder in the firing order due to a valve not opening, even if it was a smaller amount open.
Of course I continued to use them after eliminating all push rod issues. What I found was that they helped stabilize and reduce the harmonics in the valve train and spring life went way up. Also in this area beefier stands and shafts paid big in valve spring life.
I am talking about quite high RPM here, like 10500 to 10800 in every gear on every run. Those clamps are a great and cheap upgrade.
Jeff Johnsen

 

Who sells them? Sounds like a neat system for stabilizing the valve train.

 

RBS has them, $126

 

The new ones from Ried Rockers are far better than the older style. We ran them with our BAE rockers for years worked well but did not control the rocker as well as then new style.. The new style removes the spring complete and really controls the rocker with the same amount of movement as a individual rocker assembly. The spring life gets better from the result shown so far and the rockers have on chance of hitting the spark plug tubes at high rpm.

 

Anyone have a pic of what they are. Why wouldn't clamp collar work from master Carr?

 

Reid Machine facebook page has pictures

 

This is the assembly with the savers installed, a solid clamp that will not allow the rocker to "bounce" off of the stand, inducing a side load on the valve as the valve opens, nor allowing the rocker to crash into the plug tube. The collar set up has been used for many years, however, with the rpm's, and the spring pressures being seen today, the collar gets pushed away during the run.

Darrell

 

My buddy Mike Kopchick at RAGE fuel systems made a set of one piece collars that have a split and two fasteners. Machines to the same id as the rocker shaft od. They clamp tight and do not move. He will make them for anyone that needs them. You will have to call him for a price.