Thread: Lost shims!

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The guy you called doesn't know sh!t. Shimming is important and there are many sizes.

^^^ talk to dre. He schooled me on this exact subject. He told me to measure all the shims i had because they where all mixed. He told me to put them where ever because most likely they will be the same size. I didnt belive him and he then told me to take a caliper and measure them. And to my amazement they where all the same f ucking size. The only reason you have to shim a head is when you do a valve job. In other words the hydrolic lifter takes up the slack not the shim(at least thats what i remember him telling me lol)

so how come when i went to the nissan dealership to order the shims for exhaust #3 & #4 they asked me what size i needed b/c there were many diff. sizes?? so can i just measure the one i found and order that size?

Wrong dude, The only motor you would have to shim is a VE motor.

On the De/De-t's the shims are all the same freakin size or close enough to it. Your hydraulic lifter takes up any slack in the valvetrain.

I have never put my shims back in where i took them out nor have i ever measured each one and so on. Big waste of time. Ive never had valvetrain problems. It took reving the motor to 12k to even pop one rocker off with S4 cams and stock springs and retainers.

So yeah, ive been working on these motors for 10 years now and never ever have i worried about shimming the head, nor have i ever had any problems on any builds ive done or rebuilds or whatever.

So OP, dont worry about shim sizes. Its not necessary.

o ok...thanks...so just measure the one i found n order the one closest to that size? n also is there a thread somewhere for how to install shims cuz i'm new to this

well guess i was right bout something lol. By the way Ve's and GTIR need to be shimed to because of solid lifter

You use the shims to balance between pairs. They are very tight tolerance shims (0.001" difference between shim sizes). Yes the hydraulic lifter keeps the rocker from popping off.... But that isn't what the shims do. Unless you are using micrometers or a quality pair of calipers you may not see any difference.

My favorite saying "just because it works doesn't mean it is right"

Or just find some from somebody off the forum. Which shim did you find the flat one or the grooved one?

Ive got tons of spare flat shims but i used my spare set of grooved shims for my twin grooved shim setup on mine. So none of those.

i need the flat ones.....i already ordered the grooved one from nissan cuz they said that those are all the same size