I know, Harley valve trains are loud ect but mine has changed since rebuild. long story short I've corrected a dealer installed street stage IV. They opted to go with the Kompressor head to maintain the bicolor look on my 2013 Blackline ( silver heads black jugs) which as I calculated had my compression 11.4-.5 which made it a detonation factory. After loads of tuning I decided to send the heads out to Mega Flo for a full port (as the Kompressor heads are just stock castings milled down) to better compliment the Se259E cam. I also went with a 55mm HPI throttle body and thier 5.3 injectors. to correct the compression I removed the 10.5 SE domed pistons and went with SE .010 over forged flat tops with a .030 head gasket to bring compression to roughly 10.7 to 1. the issue I'm having is that once reassembled and started the valvetrain is noticeably louder than before. It doesnt tick or knock but a louder than stock sewing machine sound. it doesnt change with rpm and I've put 150 or so miles on it since. I'm scheduled to have it dyno'd on the 26th and want to address any possible issues before I take it and have the shop telling me i need to put new lifters in or something. I've got SE adjustable and have heard of guy's adjusting them to try to eliminate the noise. what I'm thinking is that the stock lifters aren't controling the valvetrain at 0 lash causing the noise. I don't feel I changed anything that would have changed the valvetrain noise. any advise is greatly appreciated.

 

You are running them at 0 lash, (no preload?)

 

No sir, I've had them set at 3 turns and 2.5 turns of preload. probably should have mentioned that. Lol

 

The bike only has 8600 miles so I would think the lifters are ok but you never know. I'm not opposed to installing new lifters just want to make sure i"m not missing something.

 

with a lift of 579 you need a better quality lifter over the stock units, they won't keep the preload needed to maintain a quiet valve train.

 

I was thinking the same thing just wanted some opinions before I started throwing parts at it.

 

Well you are asking the lifters to do a whole lot more work than before, especially the c lifters.
Surprised they were not changed with the build.
You might not notice any difference in noise but will feel better when you remove that concern.

 

I thought about it but research suggested they would be ok. It's thrown me for a loop since they seemed fine before tear down. I didnt change the cam.

 

I'm pretty sure that you can preload those lifters to 3.2 turns or even more. Give Scott a call at hillside, He'll set you straight.

 

standard SE adjustables have 24 TPI on those pushrods 3.5 turns max gives them 0.147 preload.