Rocker arm swaping

[302hobronco]

I've heard of people swapping 1.7 ratio rockers in place of the stock 1.6 ratio rockers. Has anyone taken it one step further and swapped stock ford 1.73 ratio rockers on?
I'm in the middle of a head replacement on a 99 5.2L and noticed the ford 1.73 stamped steel rockers will bolt up. I don't have the heads on the engine yet, but it got me thinking. Has anyone experimented with this yet?

 

[302hobronco]

To answer my own question I tried it. I measured the ford 1.73 pedestal and the stock dodge 1.6 pedestal. The dodge pedestal is .118 taller than the ford 1.73 pedestal. So, I went to ace and found grd8 washers that measured exactly .118. Stacked the washers and installed the rocker arms. Found that when I torqued the rocker arm bolts down, the push rods were very loose. So I removed one washer from the stack and the rocker arms torqued down in less than 3/4 of a turn. The push rods felt and looked like they had proper preload. But... the rocker tip hung out over the valve tip. It only made contact on the outside of the valve tip. I marked the bottom of the rocker arm tip and the tip of the valve. Rotated the engine over. Looking at where the rocker arm made contact with the valve tip, the rocker arm was sitting on the very edge of the valve tip. The wear pattern looked like it was pulling the valve tip towards the intake manifold rather than pushing squarely on the valve tip. So, maby with longer push rods and more time it could work? But for now I put the 1.6 rockers back on. If I had an engine that was disposable, it would be interesting to fiddle with it more and see if I could get it to work and run.