What is the expected life of valve springs? Just wondering f I should plan to change them after 150k miles.

 

I think Lindsey says about 1,200 miles on the latest ones - but the originals faired much better.




Just kidding.

 

Do you have a real answer?

 

Long time with stock pressure - although ted had a broken inner one with 85,000 and a stock engine.......

 

I'll have mine tested first and see if they need replacement.

 

streckfu,

Determining life expectancy of valve springs is difficult. A lot of factors are involved.....

Spring rate tollerance group from manufacture, quality of spring manufacture, useage of spring (rpm levels of operation), valve condition, valve seat condition (as seats/valves wear the valve rides lower and thus the spring height is increased and spring pressure is reduced), Cam lift, etc.

The best method to determine spring condition, is to measure the spring rate. Most good machine shops can take this measurement. Shims can be added to increase spring rate and bring back into spec, but this is limited. Too much shim and you risk spring bind.

I had Lindsey Racing do headwork to my car at 70K miles. 4 of my springs were weak. Lindsey shimmed the 4. But only because they were not that far out of spec. I would say that 150k miles on valve springs, is good service and the springs should be replaced. With weak springs, at the least you will not get a good valve seal and you will loose power. Or have valve float, and loose power. Or valve float and you burn a valve. At worst the spring will fail and you bend a valve or valves.

As many find with the 951..............you can pay a little now, or a lot later! Skimping on these cars will only buy you grief.

 

I'm gooing to see about changing them as I don't want to take any chances.

Currently, I'm shopping around to see who sells what to buy from a few vendors as possible while getting good prices.

 

I believe lindsey tested those with a solid lifter set-up, and various cylinder head/camshaft 'upgrades' that were beefed up.

Anyways, lindsey sell the stock valve spring for $210 while their racing version is for $299 (all without labour/installation).

$89 sounds good for an upgrade if you ask me, and they use spring cups instead of shims for adjustment.

Again, i am not encouraging you that the racing springs are the way to go, just doing some math I am sure there would be other vendors (SFR for example) who may have upgraded springs (or even stock ones).

 

I got all new valve springs from Pelican Parts for ~$130 IIRC. They were on their online catalog, but it looks like they've just changed all that. You may want to give them a call and check it out.

 

I looked there and didn't see them. Thanks for the heads up.

 

I had mine shimmed when I had the head redone

 

However, most other vendors (4 so far) are selling the stock springs for $140-150.
Why then, does Lindsey sell them for $60-70 more.

That makes the racing springs less of a bargain $150 more.

 

Have you tried Zim's or Paragon or EBS?

 

Daniel: Yeah, in that case where other vendors are selling stock ones cheaper, the racing ones are no longer a bargain. I just quickly browsed through Lindsey site, and didn't check other vendors prices