Offshoreonly.com - Schubeck Lifters or Rocker Arms, Anyone running em

Well, in all honesty, I tried or was going to try Schubeck's new rocker arms. They have the special non-friction material on the tips that replace the roller tips on a conventional roller rocker arm. They are a really cool design and great concept. I bought two sets of Schubeck's rocker arms with 1/2 studs for my 540's over one year ago. Here are some of the problems we had installing the Schubeck components.

* When it comes to their 1/2" dia studs, it was very difficult tightening them down on the head. This of course has to be done with the push rod guide plates but is very difficult and we couldn't get a torque wrench on the studs for proper torquing because of the larger diameter of the stud face---you can't get a socket on it properly because of the curvature of the push rod guide plate interference. You can get the standard size 7/16" studs, but opted for the 1/2" studs and this was the problem I ran into.

* Some of the threading on the studs were NOT cut correctly on the stud shaft. I had trouble with some (not all) of the adjusting nuts feeling funny as we put them on the studs.

* A couple of the fulcrum shafts were too tight and would not fit over the studs.

* A few of the rocker arms were bottoming out on the rocker arm studs and not tightening correctly.

* I also bought a few of Schubeck's light weight fuel pump push rods with the special non-friction material on the ends/tips. As we tried to install them both rods were too large in diameter and they would not fit in the fuel pump push rod bosses in the block. We put a mic on it for a measurement and they were about 3.5 thousandths of an inch too large on both rods.

With all these problems I removed Schubeck's rocker arms and studs from both engines. I never fired up the engines with Schubeck's components on them. I was far too nervous to try them on my $30K a piece engines and installed my Crane Gold roller rocker arms back on and other fuel pump push rods.

I was really excited to try Joe Schubeck's stuff. Joe has some wonderful ideas with his stuff, however the thing some of his components lack is practical testing and running time on time on actual engines on the track or in the ocean. In other words, I would have been one of Joe's guniea pigs. Joe was a super nice guy, and I was willing to give it a fair shot, but with all the problems I had with the assembly phase of installing his components on my engines I didn't even want to start my engines with his parts on them and so I removed them.

This has been my experience,----perhaps Joe has since then improved his Quality Control in his components. However, for now, I'll choose to wait for his stuff to be tested and I hear of good results. So far, jdnca1 has had good results with Schubeck's cams and radius lifters which I am glad to hear of. Joe has great vision and good ideas, but lacks the proper testing of some of his components, but I am sure he is working on that as we speak. :)