Bear with me for a sec guys. Just kind of curious. Obviously when you do a valve lash adjustment, you're supposed to set #1 to TDC, and then adjust for that cylinder and carry on. My question is, is it absolutely necessary? My thinking is you can plainly see the cam lobes, and any layman can just rotate the engine until visually confirming that the lobes for those rockers are clear, ( pointed straight downward.) So is there a very specific reason to do it that way, or is it just generally accepted? I can't imagine it would make a difference really.

 

Answered my own question, just bit the bullet and did it, idle improved considerably, valve train noise lessened and maybe I'm imagining things but it seemed a bit more responsive and generally peppier. So as long as you're careful noting cam lobe positions you can save a little time worrying about finding timing marks and whatnot, if you're lazy like me. Did the valves from #4 down to 1 in the order that the lobes let off the rockers. .25 mm exhaust. .20 mm intake.

 

Or just do it properly and reduce the risk of fking it up.

 

I found out about the wire tdc trick shortly after doing mine the way I did. Would have been faster yet, and the valves would have been done in the "correct" order. Either way it doesn't make much difference to me.

 

Do people really have trouble getting specific pistons to TDC? I always found the cam gear markings super quick. I guess if you do away with the OEM cam gears you might have some trouble.

 

OP, I think you are likely correct.
It also probably doesn't matter if the piston is at perfect TDC or not. As long as the tappet valve being adjusted isn't touching the lobe, then the adjustment process should work just fine.

 

What engine? Those seem a bit loose.

 

That is not loose, that is metric. The SAE values on the Honda V6 are between 0.008" and 0.013" which translate to 0.20mm and 0.33mm. Most US feeler gauges are a perfect SAE# with an odd metric translation on them. This makes using the SAE specs in the book a bit simpler........but this is also a possible source of confusion.

 

You may still have free play, but end up on part of the cam lobe. This is called the take-up....the part of the lobe that takes up the lash before contacting the rocker. If you adjusted a valve on the take-up, you would end up giving it too much lash.

It's best to use TDC to adjust your valves.

I agree about the "perfect TDC" not being necessary. But you should at least get the cam pointed in the right direction for the cylinder being adjusted.

 

Yeah I used SAE feelers but just used the closest gauge in mm, which was off by .004 mm iirc. Negligible I think, and yeah with the lobe take up I can see why that would be an issue, I just made sure that the lobe was pointing ~180 degrees directly away from the rocker arm face before I adjusted. If we're being honest I couldn't find the gunsight to check the timing marks. I feel like the guys who installed this engine may have broke it off on accident, (I know them personally.) Furthermore my crank pulley was dirty and I was too much of a lazy dirtbag to wipe it off and find marks. Haha.

 

Engine in question is a D15 as well.