Ahh Mr. Conley....... back on the original subject. I started to explain a little, but you nailed it, as usual. I call it "the wiggles"......with conventional springs, the resonance comes and goes, like turning a switch on and off, getting worse with rpm, until finally, the wiggle becomes violent and the spring goes out of control. The way to prolong the enevitable used to be to add tension, and dampers, and springs wound in the opposite direction, etc. Especially with conicals, and still with dome-shaped " beehives ", there are never two coils of the spring that are upset at the same time. The net resulting " rule of thumb" is that it takes about 15% less spring pressure to control a given combo. This can be a wonderful thing if you have a flat tappet that would want.....say a 400 lb open pressure. What if you can control it with 340 open instead? Even a monkey can see the benefit. Or what if we want a hydraulic roller hot rod to LAST awhile, dependably......rockers, shafts, pushrods, and lifters can all benefit when a 220@.050 mild hydraulic roller can operate with 300 open pressure, it's a WIN situation.
I don't do anything to an engine anymore only because I saw someone else try it. I'm no Einstein, and I'm no Bill Conley either, but I've done this for a long time now...seriously about 40 of my 48 years......and there are some applications where springs with varying coil diameters are always a plus.
I have used 530 open pressure on some high end flat tappets with conventional springs, that HAD to have 530. Then, controlled the same combo to higher rpm with 470 open conicals. It just plain works.
No intent to be pissy with folks.......just trying to have a civil technical discussion of the original topic. Always glad to see Mr. Conley comment.
