Anyone using these?

they speak good of them on Camaros.net

Just wanted to resurrect this thread and see if anyone here is using them. Are they a hyd tappet only item or could they be used with a hyd roller setup as well? I'm also wondering if the weight they save actually is significant and if they can still dampen valvetrain harmonics as well as a douple spring setup with a dampner?

Answering one of my own questions, yes you can get them for a hyd roller setup smile.gif

I'm intrigued by these, I think it was the Crane website that I first saw them on. They never mentioned it, but I wonder if the diameter reduction also upsets the harmonics, namely, sends them up higher in rpms, or just dampens them?

Thye idea of smaller, lightweight retainer is logical. As long as there is no compromise in locking, which I can't see affected at all.

Unfortunately, us bbc guys won;t see them for a while. And, my interest in them is for an L88-type motor, i.e. one that nmakes its best power from 5500-7200 rpms. For a typical 6000-rpm motor, imho, its overengineering.

Beehives are for sewing machines imho, especially 427 cubic inch ones!!!

Crane has a Beehive spring that will fit a BBC, but it is intended for a small block Ford application. I spoke to Crane about this, from what I was told, they are still not comfortable with only using a single spring (of any design) on a performance application because of the potential for catostrophic failure. I can see their point. I just installed Comp 925's in my heads for a hyd roller setup, these were much longer / lighter than the single springs I took out. Also compared them to an old set of dual BBC springs I had on the shelf, they were a lighter gauge than those also, but again, much longer.

According to this (http://www.carcraft.com/techarticles/116_0402_spring/index2.html) Car Craft article the beehive springs can give over a 50% reduction in spring assembly weight(99g single wire/w dampner assembly - 63g beehive assembly). They also talk about an advantage of valvetrain harmaronics reduction but dont' get into it further than that. There's an article in Circle track or Stock Car Racing right now about valve springs and harmonics as well. It says most Nascar teams have formulas but basically use trial and error with different springs to keep harmonics to a minimum.

Comp also carries a hyd tappet big block spring, PN 29120. I'm not sure if it's a typo or what but they list some spring specs in a pop-up window on their page as well but the PN is 26120.

Info from comps page on the 26120 springs is in PDF format here (http://www.compcams.com/Information/WhatsNew/Files/26120%20Beehive%20Spring2.pdf)

It's a hyd roller 1.445" spring with a seat load of 155@1.880" and open 377@1.280. Coil bind is 1.230". This yeilds up to .600" lift. So for most of you big block guys, I guess Comp doesn't have a "comfortable" set out yet either.

Originally posted by 91 Camaro:
They also talk about an advantage of valvetrain harmaronics reduction but dont' get into it further than that.... I think it's cause they don't completely understand why it does reduce harmonics. Probably because they are trying to reverse engineer GM's work.

Harmonics are wickedly hard to model,I hear, but how hard are they to test?

They're hard to test, because every piece in the valvetrain is a variable. No two hotrodders are going to use the same combination of parts.

I thought I saw a program recently that talked about them on one of the auto shows in their new products section. Don't they have other advantages because of their height and diameter?

This months Popular Hotrodding has a budget big block buildup that uses the beehive springs. They say that the beehives were good for 900 more RPM on the spintron.