broken rocker problem

Yours is not the first problem I've heard with teh mikesxs elephant foot adjuster. The elephant foot is a great idea and many two valve engines have adapted the Porsche adjuster without problem. I guess the fault is with the mikesxs adjuster. You really have two choices:

1. Get your money back and used the stock rockers and adjusters.
2. Keep the rockers and buy some better quality Porsche adjusters. (used in performance VWs)

Tom Graham

The type of "elephant's foot" adjusters that Mike's sells are not the kind most of us use. We use a different style that looks like the screw end of a C-clamp. This type has been proven to work well over many years and thousands of miles in service. The MikesXS type don't work well, as you noticed. The only drawback to the style we use is that you need to mod your rocker arms by grinding about 4mm off the bottom so the larger "foot" will clear .....

I am using the rocker modification just like in 5twins comment. So far I have had no problems. I bought the elephant foot adjuster from CB Performance in Farmersville California Ph 559-733-8222. The part number is #1518 and I think it was less then $27 for a package of eight. I had a porcshe for many years and the adjusters looks pretty close to the same as on my 911.

On a new engine, Any new engine I always check the valves again in the first 100 miles and I re-torque the head at least once in the first week because the heat will cause the head gasket to seat down a little over time. It never hurts to check it once in has cooled down just to be sure the bolts are still tight, also a new valve train is one of those things that settles in over time. it's a good practice to keep an eye on it for a while when your breaking the engine in. If it doesn't sound right it's probably not right. Noises should never get louder when it come to the top end. it's ok to run the valves a little lose to get it running but not so long the they beat up the valve stems.

One thing I did notice with the elephant foor adjusters was that the feeler gauge doesn't slide as easy as it would with the original ajuster becuase the contact area is so much greater.

My personal opinion is that the elephant foot adjuster are quieter. The reason I think is because the have a much larger surface area in contact with the valve stem so the oil develops a thin pad between the foot and the valve stem, kind of like a hydraulic lifter. One other advantage is with a larger surface area it won’t wear a divot in the tip of your valve stem which happens over time. With a slower wear rate they should hold their adjustment better over time too. The down side it the work getting them to fit which involves removing and grinding the rocker and in my opinion they are more difficult to adjust because the foot tend to grab the feeler gauge as your sliding it in and out. I can pretty much set the few thousandths on a Volkswagon and Porsche rocker by feel because I’ve done it so many times over the years but with this set up I never can get that feel for how much slop between the tappet and stem so I used the feeler gage every time and I set it little more snug than my usual practice. The other plus is you can run high lift cams and with Mike’s rocker you can’t. That’s about all I can think of right now. I hope this helps

there was the old shims in the springs would that be a problem

Zorkle, that COULD be the issue...just possibly. The quick n dirty way is to roll the motor over until you get max valve lift and use feeler gauges to see what kind of gap is left between the center coils. Basically if you have air between the coils it should be ok, unless it's reeeal close. Ideally this stuff is checked on a valve spring load checker with the height gauge. Compress the spring till coil bind, take the measurement, then compress the spring back down to the valve lift specs on the cam card and subtract. There's your safety margin. If I remember right, that margin should be around .050" minimum, but don't quote me, it's been a while. Also mic the cam itself if you have calipers. Measure the base circle on the lobes, then the max lobe lift and subtract. There's the true cam lift that you can match up to the spec card, if it came with one. Then multiply by the rocker arm ratio to give you actual valve lift (minus lash). It's a bit of a pain, but since you've gone through this much so far, why not take the cam in to a good engine shop and have them spec it out if you're not familiar with doing the check yourself. It's easy to get lost in the numbers.
Then again, it just might be bad parts