Help me find some cheap valves please

We're putting together a Coventry Climax engine and want to make it breathe a bit more at high RPM. I'm looking for some readily available valves to build the head around.

Dimensions:

Total Length: 3.675" (would like to go a tad longer to grind down base circle with cam regrind) Stem diameter: .308" (would like to go with smaller stems) Retainer groove: .2" from tip of valve Intake Diameter: 1.345" (can go up to around 1.5" before shrouding is a concern) Exhaust Diameter: 1.175" (can go up to around 1.35" before shrouding blah blah blah)

Guides are .5" outer diameter, 1.360" length with a groove .4" down from spring size, but guides should be easy once I have some valves.

Have you tried one of the valve companies like REV?

In reply to Ranger50:

It's a bit late today, I'll try in the morning. I'm having trouble finding ANY valves this short overall length.

Don't you have access to any old catalogues? Paper as well as on line? Just research size and approximate length.

When I built my 2 litre MGA Twin Cam motor, I simply looked through the catalogues for the valve head size I wanted and the length, then slightly shortened them and machined the the collet grooves slightly to take the slightly different collets of the Twin Cam.

Normally you'd worry about losing the hardening when you ground down the stem tips, but like you I was modifying an OHC engine where there was no rubbing action across the tip of the stem like there would be in a rocker actuated system, just the shim pressing straight down on the stem, so I wasn't concerned about issues there.

Guess it may be hard to find old Tranco catalogues these days, but the same info should be available online somewhere....

This might help. Bunch of different manufacturer specs.

http://www.supertechperformance.com/cat-ivalves?id=11

Maybe consider getting some SBC Ti valves, since you are going to machine them anyway (eBay is your friend here).

.308" = 7.82 mm, maybe find some 6 or 7 mm valves.

Or, since .3125 is a 'standard' size, just use them, 0.04" is not enough to be a big flow issue.
Spitfire valves are fairly short.

Trouble about valves for old British cars is that most are made offshore from inferior metal and the tops mushroom after a short while. So they quickly go out of adjustment and then have to be cut in half to remove.

I never did find any stock valves that would work, so we ending up ordering some custom valves that were supposed to be here in about a week. Over a month later and the valves come in and they are wrong in almost every dimension.

This got me thinking I should learn how to cut my own valves. I have a good lathe and was just wondering what kind of cutter I should use to cut the retainer groove in the tip.

bearmtnmartin wrote: Trouble about valves for old British cars is that most are made offshore from inferior metal and the tops mushroom after a short while. So they quickly go out of adjustment and then have to be cut in half to remove.

Lash caps. They're not just for lash.

What we're looking at now is starting with some DOHC 4.6 ford valves which would fit nicely except for the length. The plan is to chuck the stem up in the lathe to cut our new retainer groove where we want it and then cut off the extra length of the stem that we don't need. The mod motor valves are cheap and readily available so we'll see how this works.