How to adjust valves on 1988 Chevy 350 small block v8?

Rick, bit of a pain and can get messy :"

1. Warm-up the engine and remove a valve cover.

2. Restart the engine and let it idle (as slow as possible to prevent massive amounts of oil splashing around)

3. Loosen an adjuster nut until the lifter clacks. Go a bit more so that the lifter can fill itself with oil. SLOWLY turn the nut back down until the clack diminishes then stops.

4. Go 1/4 more turn and move on to then next valve.

5. Do this for all 8 valves then go back and turn them ALL down 1/4 more turn each.

6. Do this one more time so that you have a full 3/4 turn of pre-load on the lifters. Sometimes, 5/8 is better than 3/4 so only go an eighth of a turn on the last go-around. Repeat the procedure on the other side.

7.Stock lifter settings are usually 1 full turn. The looser you leave them, the better top end you'll get and it'll help the exhaust valves stay a bit cooler as well.

8. The reason you only go a quarter turn at a time is to give the lifter a chance to stabilize. Otherwise you'll stall the engine if you try and crank the full 5/8 or 3/4 turn in all at once. from here Check on here to see how to do it without running the engine. Hope this helps, good luck.