I've chewed on it a bit and decided to spend some time figuring out what's wrong. I'll first swap in another rocker arm as a check against the first. If the rocker is bad.... end of KNOWN problem. If I get the same result, I'll check the other cylinders and then decide. I can always split the difference if the numbers vary on that side.

What concerns me is the geometry that could be screwed up from a prior valve job. The side that's off required a thinner feeler shim for zero lash - could be the rocker, but it could be the valve stem. The issue could be at least partially caused by a difference in valve grind and/or recession and I won't know until I check the rocker and at least one more cylinder on that side.

6-8 degrees bothers me a lot, too. If I ever build another one of these engines, it'll be completely blueprinted.... the variances are very surprising to me.

Frank