what thickness of Head gaskets are you using

 

stock replacement felpro, I believe they measure in at .048 but I can double check that. They are very close to the original gasket thickness.

 

Food for thought. Just want to throw some ideas around.

A stock OEM gasket is said to be .051 thick compressed.

My block is in the machine shop getting decked but prior to that I came up with .005 and .006 out of the hole.

A solid lifter is manufactured by another company. Its also designed to be run with clearance between the valve tip and and rocker arm. It is possible for it to be slightly different in height from the roller to push rod cup affecting your measurement. To rule that out I would recomend getting an OEM lifter new or used and do 1 of 2 things.
1. dissassemble it and fill it with epoxy and reassemble it
2. carefully tack weld the pushrod cup in place.

I didn't see any mention of push rod used for measureing so for the sake of this I will just assume you used an OEM which I believe is 7.400 long. It's not uncommon for people to use a shorter pushrod in a swap like this. If you don't already have an adjustable pushrod I would recomend one. ever one has a different safe limit. I would think You would want at least .060 min on the intake and probably .080 min on the exahust.

My understanding is that on the LS series engines dot to dot lined up is the exahust stroke. The compression stroke is with both dots straight up at 12:00 o'clock position. I don't have mine to confirm though... Not saying this is your problem Just going over some basics...

Last but not least. Were did you get the heads from???

 

I came up with the same info, but the felpro is only .003 thinner.
my pistons are .007 out of the hole, block has not been decked
I have done my checking with a stock hyd lifter and a stock hyd lifter modified to solid.
I am using the stock length texas speed pushrods, the length is good, it does not lift the valve on the base circle of the cam and the pattern on the valve stem is good
This was already thought of by the builder as well.2006 corvette LS2 where the guy was upgrading, I removed them myself, low milage car which he owned since new

 

If these heads have the sodium/hollow valves in them then that could be part of your problem cause they are a bit longer stemmed then regular valves..

Ill see if i can find the different lenght..

Edit- Looks like the longer valves are .6mm/.023 longer than standard Ls valves,but i dont see where they were used in the 06 ls2's

 

Well then something is just not adding up, or some info is not correct on some things.. I would get a push rod checker,see where that gets you...

 

get a thick *** head gasket and be done with it?

 

He is going to loose some compression with a thick *** gasket, also valve cutting the pistons. Not something you would want to do.

 

I'm assuming that the cam was installed "straight up", no advance or retard on the chain/gears?

What length pushrods are you using? Is it possible that the solid lifter you're using is incorrect somehow?

 

loss of compression is acceptable when the other option is bending valves. Im not saying its right, but it is an option. He needs to figure out why he lost the clearance. iirc, that cam shouldn't cause ptv issues.