Valve clearances 02 RT?

[chrisstroh]

My valves for dummies says the clearance is for exhaust and intake is .30mm and .15mm. Well the only feeler gauges I can buy are .305mm and .152mm. Are these small descrepencies ok? I want to make sure I do it right.

 

thx, Chris

[Bob Palin]

Won't matter at all, the important thing is to get all the intakes the same and all the exhausts the same. You can get the exact blades made by Wurth, colour coded and everything. Most of the online BMW stores will have them, get 2 of each.

[steve.foote]

What Bob said. The only thing I'd add is that you can go slightly larger, but not slightly smaller.

[Mudman]

What Bob and Chris said.

 

If you can feel the difference of .005mm while adjusting the valves that is much better than almost anyone I know.

[Rob L]

You could use .006" and .012" if you have them. They are .152 and .305mm. The bike will never know the difference

[KMG_365]

Another A-R trick I use is swapping the two feelers a few times during the course of the check--this also equalizes the oil film which can affect your "feel". I bought two sets of feelers from Craftsman originally and the two .006" feelers were no where near the same thickness. I only found this out doing the swap and check, repeatedly.

 

As stated you can go larger, but don't go smaller (they'll usually tighten up a bit as they seat and you don't want to start out too tight and burn a valve). Rob Lentini did a write-up on experimenting with greater valve lash values and the resulting affects on off-idle and top-end. As I said the two .006" feelers in my set were nowhere near close to each other, so I just use the two .007" ones for the intakes . . . and have for the last 100,000 miles with no problems. I believe Rob had gone as large as 0.12" on the intakes--which really jumps off the line--but at the cost of sacrificing some power on the top end.

 

YMMV!