My 302 Head Hurts!!!

[BTIMMONS]

After much discourse offline with Fordguy and BroncoBlair...snatching the intake and valve covers and '100's of yards' of digital video and knocking the hood off the prop onto my forearm...I have E7TE heads - (after speaking to Carlton at Nationwide) which are regular Mustang GT - 225 horse heads - roller.  He agreed that best bet is to order pushrods 50-80 thousands over the stock longer pushrods I have now.  He also stated that with this combo of 71 block/302 flat tappet to later head style the easiest options are 1) CHeck Jegs and order longer pushrods or 2)do it the old way and take down the fulcrums enough to preload.  I will do #1 and eventually go to roller adjustable rockers later...
Notes and thoughts:
Blair and I did make one observation that was interesting...the Oil hole on the earlier CAST rockers have a much smaller oil hole for the pushrod over the later style stamped rockers...meaning more oil pressure.  My current OP symptoms are low steady 20 lb pressure at idle but not hardly any rise or increase with increase in RPM or acceleration.  I will post a link to show how much slop is in the rockers later with no preload at all...in fact if truth were known about 25-30 thousands of lash at least...not good.  Being I am an old Mopar junkie, for a motor that has never run I thought it was acceptable as mopars run shaft style rockers with the oil coming from the rocker tower into the rocker shafts. Having regurgitated all that it is obvious my OP is affected as the oil is definitely escaping prior to traveling up the pushrod.

[BTIMMONS]

The moral of the story:
IF you buy someone's project in boxes ... expect the curves you will get.  Mine being a hodge-podge on the motor (although not a bad thing and not insurmountable) - 71 302 short block - 87 Mustang heads.  AS I indicated last post, met with Carlton and measured and explained my symptoms by video; borrowed his push rod checker and have posted my findings on setting pre-load on the rockers - about what he had prescribed earlier with approx. 60 thousands additional length needed.
On second pic you can see diff in preload from stock to 'new' measured preload...take note of the clip at the top of the lifter.

[BTIMMONS]

Received the push rods - 6.936" length ...  now to put them in and will update.  Pic describes new length

[BroncoBlair]

Well!! DOES IT RUN ?

Or is your head still hurting?

[BTIMMONS]

got everything including the top back together with carb on and water in radiator...just need put Oil filter back on (removed to access the Oil sending unit leak problem and replace the Oil send extension).  that should put me ready to check it; I should have plenty of preload on the lifter now.  Fingers are crossed...would love to move on to the next phase of this project!!!