Valve stem seals with stainless steel valves and silicon bronze valve guides - yes or no?

[EdWills]

The web has a few car forums where owners of cars from small European sports cars to U.S. muscle cars inquire about using valve stem seals with silicon or manganese bronze valve guides.  Some say yes, you should fit them, and others say no with a mix of reputable car mechanics advising either way.  

 

I have a Holbay Ford cylinder head that some describe as Stage II - fitted with larger 1.6" inlet valves, but not so large as to cause possible cracking between the inlet and exhaust valve seats.  The head was new and based on an 1100 c.c. flat cylinder head as there is/was more metal available to grind away for porting (Note: recommendation of David Vizard many, many years ago to use an 1100 uprated flat head on the 1600 c.c. 711M Crossflow which I will be rebuilding).  Holbay fitted harder exhaust seats for unleaded fuel,  stainless steel valves, and silicon bronze valve guides.  Double springs are fitted, but I am thinking of using singles.  Holbay did not fit valve stem seals to the double springs.  I checked with Burton a couple of years ago as I was considering using 'special' stem seals on the valves (with single springs), but Burton did not recommend using stem seals, as they believe that the valve stem and guide would not receive sufficient lubrication.  Some say there is burnt oil smoke on start-up with no seals, and that this goes away quite quickly.  Also mentioned was valve stem seizing if there is insufficient flow of oil due to the seals doing too fine of a job. I have read that tuners installing stainless valves fitted in silicon bronze guides normally specify minimum clearances from new, thereby requiring a good flow of oil.  Has anybody with road or racing experience seen premature wear with stem seals fitted to bronze guides?  I don't want to be trailing smoke and polluting the neighbourhood - even with a car that has no pollution control to speak of - so advice would be much appreciated.  W

Edited 21 minutes ago by EdWills