the lifter plunger has around .100" travel in it. you dont want so much preload that the lifter will bottom out and act as a solid. but you dont want not enough to where everything jumps around at high rpm and creates slack.
i set my rockers to .020 and havent had a problem. sound great!
you will have the ability to set whatever preload you want.
have the heads on the car. take a rocker and put it over the stud and thread the poly lock on. hold the rocker up and adjust the poly lock up or down to where the roller tip on the rocker is about centered over the valve stem tip. if anything make it a little on the intake side just a hair (the roller travels in an arc and will move towards the exhaust side a bit)
now take and adjustable pushrod. sit it in there and adjust it out to zero lash, where all the slack is taken up BUT the lifter piston isnt depressed, take out the adjustable pushrod and measure it with a set of dial calipers. now you can just add the amount of preload you want to run to the measurement and order that pushrod.
say you measure a 6.750" at zero lash, for .020" preload order a pushrod thats 6.770" long. it doesnt have to be exact. in my case i ordered a pushrod .050 longer than my zero lash measurement. this gives me some play room for preload and etc. dont be anal about getting the exact length you need, get it pretty close. if you want EXACT chances are you will be paying for a custom set of pushrods which isnt cheap. every engine is different and all engines should be checked on an indivudual basis, there are many variables in pushrod length.
my car measured 6.750 at zero lash, i ordered a set of 6.805 pushrods, they were cheap and fairly close to my measurement, i was going to experiment with preloads if need be so it worked out good, gave me some room to mess with the preload if i needed to.
now that you have your pushrod get ready to put them on, put all yoru pushrods in and start rotating the engine by hand. an easy way to do it is watch cyl #1 until its compression stroke, on that stroke both valves will be shut and lifters on the base circle. you can proceed to adjust this cyls valves
put your rocker on and handtighten the poly until you reach zero lash, easiest way to know is to wiggle or twist the pushrod until you feel resistance and there is no slack.
now its time to set the preload and lock it down.
depending on stud size you will turn your wrench in different increments.
most studs are either 3/8-24 or 7/16-20, the thread count per inch is what makes the difference. in the 24 threads per inch... 24 full turns of the poly lock will move it down exactly one inch. to find out how much it moves in say 1/4 turn increments its just simple math.
divide 1 by 24 and you get .040". so one FULL turn of the polylock past zero lash on a 3/8-24 stud will be .040" preload. do the same math for the 20 threads per inch stud and you get .050 so on the 7/16-20 will be .050
so a 1/4 turn on the 3/8-24 stud is going to be .010", a 1/2 turn would be .020" etc
a 1/4 turn on the 7/16-20 stud is going to .0125" just a hair more than the smaller stud, a 1/2 turn will be .025"
set your preload and lock the two rockers down, then rotate the engine until the next cyl reaches its compression stroke with both valves shut, you can follow the firing order if you like, wont have to turn the crank so much.
my car uses 3/8-24 studs, i set my preload to .020 so i turned them 1/4 turn past zero lash and locked them down.
there any MANY methods to do valve train stuff dont let people tell you there is only opne magical way to do it correctly. some people prefer to set each individual valve instead of two at a time like i did, thats fine but i dont see any difference because both valves are on the base circle in the method i explained.
everything i explained is how i did mine and had great luck and dont have any valve train noises, its quiet and sounds great.
good luck.