valve spring bind?

[AaronGTR]

Anyone know what constitutes valve spring bind exactly? Is it where all the coils are touching and you can't compress the spring any more? Or can it be just one coil touching?


Here's why I ask. I bought new stock LS6 valve springs to go with the cam I got from Milzy. He told me the clearance was close but they would work. Now that I have them on the engine, when I turn it over by hand only the bottom coil looks like it gets close to touching, but the rest have plenty of room between them (at least 1/16"). If the bottom coil does touch but the rest have lots of compression left, will that hurt something eventually or is it ok? I really don't want to spend another $125 on valve springs if I don't have to.

My other option is to get the 26915 LS6 spring from comp cams. It is supposed to have more distance between coils and more maximum compression. It might be more durable, more accurate, made from better materials etc etc... I don't know. I know it only has 15lbs more seat pressure closed than the stock springs though, and the same open pressure at the same height as stockers. My max valve lift with this cam is .5263" and the stock LS6 max lift is .552", so the difference is .0257". My installed height is .1" lower than the LS, so I'm getting a total of .0743" more compression than on a stock LS6, or just over 1/16". I would think the stock springs could handle that don't you?

[geoffinbc]

Your fine. Bind is when the coils touch and the spring cant compress.

[smilinguy99]

You can take this for what it is worth, but Crane says you can use their springs if your maximum compressed height is coil bind plus .060". You have multiple instances of .0625" So you are good.

[sharkey]

general rule is .010" between each coil.

[AaronGTR]

Cool, thanks guys. Guess I'm leaving those springs in there then. That saves me a lot of work.

[RacerX11]

For standard springs, if any coils are touching, you are in trouble. With the conical LS6 springs (or stock 3x00 spring), they are designed to start compressing the coils progressively, starting with the bottom ones. This is what gives them the added stability and float resistance over standard springs. If you only have one coil touching, you are OK.

How much lift are you running agin? What was the installed height on your springs?

Marty

[v6h.o.]

Thats funny, Milzy was telling a guy who I was going to do a ported set of heads and LS6 spring on that they(Ls6 springs) wont work with his heads as they cannot take that amount of lift -I think it was .53x or whatever, (I know they'll work as stock LS6's run .550 inch lift fine) But, Then he recommends them to you..



As stated, You will be fine.

[AaronGTR]

Yeah... like I said, our installed height is 1.7" and the LS6 is 1.8", so we have a little more compression than the LS6 gets, but it should still be fine. I could see where if we started getting valve lift in the .55" or higher range where it might start getting risky though and you'd want to use the comp springs. I don't know what his stage2 lift specs are though so don't know if you'd need them or not.

[v6h.o.]

This is the info I recieved on the stage 2:

stage 2 specs are .556/.559 lift, 222/226 duration, 110 LSA, 106 IC.