Maruha special clearance collars.

[tropical]

Hi Chaps.

As I have posted in another thread, I am having some issues with my HLA's at sustained high revs and am looking for a solution that won't cost the earth(Shim under buckets).

I seem to remember Moro on here used these collars on his awesome ITB build along with Maruha cams??

I am hoping he sees this post and chimes in, has anyone else on here used these(they effectively replace the innards of the HLA with a solid post, turning them into shim under buckets, albeit heavier)

www.maruhamotors.co.jp/miata/parts/clearance_c.html

My question to anyone who has used these is did you measure the cam to lifter clearances then order the correct length collars? or did you have them machined down? do you remember roughly what length you ended up with? and are you still using the standard valve springs?

I'm assuming that I would have to order a few of their shortest collars, assemble into a couple of lifters and use these to measure the clearance to the base circle of the camshaft, I would have to repeat this for every single lifter, removing and replacing, re torquing the cams each time!!! Then have the longer collars machined down, reassemble and hope I got it right!

After writing all that and then reading it back, I'm starting to go off the idea!! It sounds like a LOT of work.

I would still be very interested to hear anyone's experience with this and also their experience ordering parts from Maruha(Japan), did you get stung for massive shipping costs/import duty.

I figure that if I'm going to be ordering parts from them then it would be rude not to get a set of their cams at the same time.

Cheers guys.

[moro]

Hello!

It is a bit of work to fit them indeed. When I was buying camshafts I've ordered 17 collars along with them to have one extra for measurements. However I didn't had to remove and replace the cams all of the 16 times. First of all I've removed the innards of every lifter, then placed the lifters back into their wells and just put cams on top and roughly measured what effectively is each collars required length. Now that I knew approx how long the shortest collar should be, the extra one was ground to be a bit shorter still. Then I've used it to properly measure 3 valves/lifters - the ones which were the next shortest. Once having 3 valves measured I've had 3 collars ground to necessary lengths, these were to be used in the engine later. Now having 4 collars in total (3 real and the extra one), and knowing they were the shortest ones, I've used them to measure the remaining lifters. I think it comes down to 6 or 7 times of replacing and retorquing of camshafts plus the final assembly, which might sound like a lot, but is much better then 16. In fact after second or third time I've got into a nice meditative rhythm and started to enjoy it. Of course you have to use the respective lifters in each well so there is lots of lifter assembly/disassembly but it is quick and easy.

Working on camshaft caps it helps to have 3 wrenches with sockets on, a torque wrench for torqueing, a ratchet for initial bolting in and a battery drill/screwdriver type for unbolting.

Collars are made from some very hard material, the machine shop that did the grounding commented that they weren't too easy to work on.

It really wasn't that bad in terms of work, it takes time but it's not tiring and not stressful. I've had initial measurements done one evening, then got the measurement collar ground next day and measured first 4 lifters the same evening. Then a couple day pause while I've had more collars ground by a shop, then another evening measuring the rest and finally assembling everything two days later when I've had all 16 ground to lengths. Of course if you could stretch to solid lifters they are a better solution, but also two or three hundred quid more expensive.

Finally, I can't comment on import duties but Maruha are very nice to deal with and delivery is quick, takes around a week usually.

Hope this helps and if there are any more questions left, fire away!

[tropical]

Hi Moro.

Thank you for the very detailed and thorough reply. I wish I had gone ahead with this collar solution whilst I had the new head all fresh and clean back from BLiNK and it was sitting on my living room table!

On a closer listen this afternoon at tickover after a childishly hard run, it may just be a couple of lifters that have got noisy/collapsed, going to take the rocker cover off next weekend and have a look for spongy lifters.

Still think I'll end up going for solid lifters of some sort soon though, I've got a set of NB BP5A cams sitting around in my garage and some rudimentary measuring tells me that they have a lot of "meat on the bone" and could be reground in to something quite fruity.

The clearance collar solution is even more labour intensive than shim under bucket, at least with SUBs you can put them all in the head, directly on to the valve stems and measure all 16 at once and if you're lucky get it all done in one sitting.

Thanks again for the reply, out of interest what do you rev your engine to?

[moro]

Only 7300. I was so fed up with engine problems before that when I got it sorted I very much erred on the side of caution and put a pretty low rev limit. Eventually I want to rev it to 7800 or thereabouts, the engine feels it would breathe nicely there with the camshafts but I also don't want to prarrie canoe my pants each time I run into revlimiter 30 meters before a braking point into a corner, so until I get some upgraded valve springs it's not going to happen.

[josho]

I went the whole hog and ordered cams and SUB lifters from them, it all turned up within 3 days! And no nasty customs charges either which was great! I am yet to measure everything up for the shims though!

Need to get that done soon ideally

[baconsarnie]

Another thumbs up for Maurha, Saiji is a pleasure to deal with and offers sound advice