rocker shafts -an alternative

Ive considered this too Taffy

I put an oil feed to the exhaust rocker of my 08, welded the hole on top of the rocker shut and drilled 2 holes, one points at the cam and one points at the RH exhaust valve spring, also plugged one end of the shaft and drilled a hole in its middle with a diamond coated burr

FWIW you could also use the rockers themselves, The 02 head I have has a much longer intake rocker than my 08 its 16.9mm difference so for the swap to work you need to make a spacer for the intake rocker, (59036060144) while the exhaust rocker (59036061144) should be a straight swap.

is it a must to drill the oil feed and cap the end? or can it be used as is from you on a 2000 model? Its really tough to drill these

in the heads without the oil pressure there is a large hole in the top of the rocker arm assy to collect oil from the cam chain "splash"

so either way you need to drill something at least for the intake rocker

these burrs are fantastic for drilling hard metal

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/30pcs-Di...270211?hash=item2a587dddc3:g:ra4AAOSwuTxV-jL4

just to clarify the exhaust rocker assembly is a direct swap except the new ones are set up for splash lube and have just one hole on the top to collect splashed oil. they do not have squirters for the cam follower bearing or cam lobes.

so you want either a new exhaust rocker and rocker shaft together for a splash system or drill and also plug holes to convert new parts to the old system

note if the intake rocker shaft is not plugged and drilled there will not be any oil feed to the exhaust rocker.

So I found a nasty surprise while checking the valve clearance on a very noisy '01 FE650.
One of the tappet arms broke off the intake rocker. Found an even nastier surprise when I took the cylinder head cover off. Collapsed CFB took off the intake lobe on the cam.

I guess the resulting clearance had things slapping around something fierce and caused the rocker arm to eventually snap off. The valve tips have been hammered into a nice mushroom shape.

Atleast the newer intake rocker arm fits in the old head, provided I make a spacer as Bushmechanic stated early in the thread. I'm using the old intake rocker shaft for the new rocker arm, this way I can keep the lubricating channel as is without the need for further modification. If the intake rocker shaft was damaged though, one would have to use a newer exhaust rocker shaft as replacement, as the newer intake rocker shaft is shorter than the old one.

When fitting the newer rocker assemblies without oil feed to the older head, the shafts will have to be plugged and drilled to get the oil feed working again, as the older cylinder head cover will not have sufficient splash lube getting to the valvetrain. I noticed the newer 'cover has some channels that allows the oil to pass through from the cam gear side to the cam lobe side of the head. To convert the old head to a more effective splash lube system I guess new channels could be drilled into the cover and shaped to allow the oil to pass through and allow for better lubrication.