Well I decided it was time to do a valve adjustment on my cummins and I sure am glad I did! Had been about 60,000 miles since I bought the truck and I doubt the valves had been adjusted before I bought it because they were way out of whack. One intake was at .15 all the rest were between .15-.25 :O! Exhaust was no better, anywhere from .25-.35! Explains the horrible mileage and really noisy idle, as soon as I started the ole girl back up after the adjustments I could tell right away at idle that this helped my truck A LOT! Took her for a drive and it seems to be pulling a lot stronger as well. Will be interesting to see the improvement to mileage!

Another big thanks to the wealth of information on DTR, because of the great instructions in the sticky this took me about an hour to do using the companion cylinder method and spinning the crank with the harmonic balancer.

Anyone who hasn't adjusted their valves yet, I would HIGHLY suggest you do this!

 

i never done mine and i wonder if the prior owner did?

 

Considering how easy it is with simple tools, you may as well do it just for peace of mind

 

Intake valves should be at .010" and exhaust valves should be at .020". Yours were very loose! You could even run them at .008" and .018" if you really wanted to.

 

what would be the benefit jimbo??? I know loose valves promote a longer compression combustion cycle....

 

Any benefits to running .008 and .018 Jim?

 

haha you beat me too it nick!

 

I run mine at .008 and .016.

Is quieter and, as you have found out, more power.

 

It dropped my egts a bit when i did mine a while back, plus I cleaned all the oil off my head that were leakin from the valve covers for years so i'm sure that helped too. I need to adjust mine again, but I'm gonna get studs then do it.

 

i did mine at .009" and .018".. looking to quiet it down a little..

MoPowa, thats pretty loose IMO. You may want to drive for a week or 2 and check them again. if they are loosing up, your cam may be going flat.

 

Good call JBradley, I'm hoping it doesn't come to that but I will definitely be checking them again in a couple weeks.
May just be a good reason to get a performance cam in there.

 

haha i want a good cam too...dont need it but want it.

 

Funny how most all the things we do to our trucks are hardly ever a need but always a want.

 

It sucks you do a mod you want and then it usually creates another mod you need lol...

 

If we did only what we NEED we would all get very bored changing oil and filters......