ok pulled the engine out of one of my former cars and the chain hit the valve spring and broke that little cap on the top of stock springs, broke perfectly around it and slid down the spring the cup that covers half the spring. i took the broken part off and i dont know what the hell they do or if i should even take one off another set of heads and replace it. gut feeling says it does nothing and im fine but just checking.

If it's the cup that covers the top half of spring then It's part of GM valve sealing idea..

The stock valve seals was just alittle rubber O ring at top of valve on most heads, then the metal oil sheilding cup over the top half of springs.

I have never used the cups.. I find them as un needed and un wanted valve train weight that can send the valvetrain into valve float sooner. 10.7 grams each is the weight on them.. Thats pretty good bit of weight

I just run unbrella seals (which looks like a small rubber cup with a hole in the bottom, they push down the valve steam and "float" up and down the stem)

On the intake valves I may put the rubber O ring seals on as well just depending on type of build, heads, etc.

Then leave off the metal oil cups.


If it's the flat ound metal thing then thats the retainer that holds valve spring down and locks in place... You need it.

It might be the valve rotator deal. Some of GM heads had this to help, or force the valve to spin as it goes up and down to keep carbon around the seats to a min and to keep from burning a valve due to it just sitting in one place

ok pulled the engine out of one of my former cars and the chain hit the valve spring and broke that little cap on the top of stock springs, broke perfectly around it and slid down the spring the cup that covers half the spring. i took the broken part off and i dont know what the hell they do or if i should even take one off another set of heads and replace it. gut feeling says it does nothing and im fine but just checking.

You better take things off and see WTF is going on. No way did your chain contact this and break the oil splash shield,, it would have bent, not broken. The fact that it broke "perfectly round" is highly suspect to me. Something has been hammering on it and fractured, pinched, or cut it all the way around for it to break off smoothly. Something else is going on and you better find it before that motor decides to swallow that valve.

yes its the oil cup that broke not the spring retainer itself the engine has 1.6 rollers on it so that might be the culprit why it broke and not my chain idea, ill look into it further.

Did it's rocker have any sort of bright spot rub mark on it's underside that would indicate it was hitting the oil cap??

What is it??

I wanna say we need at least .030" clearance under there??

Like a big paper-clip wire's worth of clearance.... Stuck up under there to check..

pdq67