Valvetrain Tech: If Gentle Weight And Low Reciprocating Mass Matter So A lot, Do Stiffer Valve Springs Price Horsepower?

Curler rockers, curler lifters, beehive valve springs, light-weight valves, light-weight locks and retainers, and the checklist goes on. These are all issues designed to help in controlling valvetrain at excessive rpm and underneath excessive energy ranges, and so they do that by decreasing the load required to maneuver and management these parts. So it might make sense that lighter valve springs would even be good for that. In any case, anybody that has constructed an engine earlier than is aware of that spinning the engine over by hand could be very straightforward when it’s only a brief block and will get tougher as you add parts. You probably have an engine with no spark plugs in it, and no rocker arms, then it’s nonetheless very easy to spin by hand. However whenever you even have to show the valvetrain, it turns into far more troublesome.
So in the event you had an engine that didn’t “require” heavier valve springs, as a result of it wasn’t going to be run at excessive rpm or didn’t have a camshaft that wanted the additional valve management that heavy springs present, would it not make extra horsepower with lighter weight springs that the others? Logic says sure. Or at the very least it looks like it does. However what does the dyno say?
Fortunately for us, Richard Holdener is aware of as a result of he’s carried out this very take a look at and right here it’s so you possibly can see for your self.