And how do you improve the likelihood of that happening? I'm a little concerned about what I've been seeing lately where lifter failures and other problems with solid rollers are concerned.

Obviously, a solid roller valvetrain should get a lot of oil whether it "needs" it or not, because low rpm oil pressure seems to be one major issue, so oil restrictors aren't recommended. Reducing valve spring pressures as much as possible is another way to avoid accelerated wear and failure, I assume. Any other suggestions?

It just seems like a lot of people with solid rollers are having lifters break up (usually Crane, but not always) and scoring or accelerated wear of the lifter rollers seems to be the norm. How often should you realistically have to rebuild or replace your lifters? Valve springs?

I know that Jordon daily drove his solid roller 396, but don't know if he had any problems that I might have missed or didn't get reported.

Thanks!

 

Are you speaking of Jordan Musser?, if so I believe all his motor(s) were HR.

 

Yep, Jordon, and his 396 was solid roller. I don't know of any other reason why he'd be running the Comp Cams Pacaloy 943s.

 

1. Your valvetrain components should be as lightweight as you can afford on the valve-side of the rocker arm. Hollow stems are the ticket for hot street builds IMO. Not cheap... but not titanium price either.

2. Increased spring pressure = bigger loads on the rocker arms so they'll need to be stronger than run-of-the-mill rockers

3. Same goes for the pushrods. 3/8 diameter or taper length for guys pushing 200+ lbs closed.

4. Keep the lift to a reasonable level. Unless you're heads were specifically setup to make big high lift flow, you will want to be on the "small" end of the spectrum (lift < .600). If you lose 5-10hp by running a cam that keeps the engine alive then it's a good trade off IMO. We're not trying to win any competitions here.

Less lift doesn't guarantee a less aggressive lobe but unless you're specifically looking at max-area and special high-acceleration lobes... it's probably easier on things if the cam has less lift. Lift is not the end-all of engine building anyways.

5. Only use lifters with hi-pressure oiling. I would use either Crower SD or Isky Red Zone.

6. Too little spring will cause you more problems than a little too much.

Yeah, there's a line there where "just enough" spring is what you want but unless you have a spintron, I'd venture to the "a little too much" side of this. I speak from experience on this one... having owned a number of solid roller street drivers over the years.

7. Run a rev kit.

8. Rebuild every 20k miles. If you don't have backup transportation, then buy two sets of lifters so you can do the swap and have the car back up while the others are being rebuilt. Rebuilding every 20k is good insurance.

This is for a not-so-aggressive cam... real aggressive may need rebuilds every 10-15k or so.

9. Monitor your springs. They will tell you when something is not right!

-Mindgame

 

I agree with most of what MindGame recommends. My solid roller experiences have been somewhat short of reliable long term compared to my flat tappet experiences. The rev kit is a must on an endurance application. The rev kit keeps the roller in contact with the cam maintaining wheel rotation on the base circle as well as over the nose when inertia will try to toss the lifter off the nose of the cam. Flat spotting the needle bearings kills the lifters in a hurry. Valve float, loose lash and lifter toss cause flat spotting. The rev kit will cause more friction in the engine, a before and after test on one of my engines showed an idle decrease of a bit over 100 rpm, so you pay a small price for durability. To me it is worth the installation hassle and after you've done it a couple times its no big deal.
Proper lubrication is very important. I still run oil restrictors against the advice of some, but I open them up a bit more than the .060" that many are supplied as. While I have never done this a person could use the Comp lifter bore grooving tool or machine their own small slot on the lifter body itself to feed oil at the wheel, but not the axle itself unfortunately.
Maintaining proper lash and not opering it up beyond what the profile can handle is important. Many of these cams are very aggressive and too loose of lash can hammer the lifter when the clearance is taken up. Maintaining your lash will let you kmow if a lifer is on its way out because worn bearings will have more clearance. I actaully like running the valves so its fun for me. With a stud girdle or shaft rockers things don't move around much, or at all in the case of my oiling T&D's.
Honestly the cam companies keep trying to improve the roller lifter and I can't help but wonder why there isn't just one kick *** longlasting design that can be produced in quantity. I don't think they have it figured out yet with all the usage variables, maybe Schubeck does, throw in the towel and forget the wheel....

BTW about 10,000 mile is the most I have gotten without a problem with at least one lifter. I'm sure my profile choices have something to do with it. Comp's are inexpensive to have rebuilt. I have used the Comp solids with a rev kit and the Crane/Lunati pop up design without. Come to think of it the pop up variety are probably not a great idea for the street.

 

Honestly, just go with a Schuebeck setup. More expensive up front, cheaper in the long run.

 

Ti valves. Check!

Crower shaft rockers. Check!

Big pushrods. Check!

0.625" max lift. Check!

Crower SD lifters. Check!

174# on the seat, 430# open. Check!

Now this is one that I've pondered quite often... even with "enough" spring for the job?

That's about 4 years of driving, or more. No problem.

 

The life of mechanical rollers depend on oiling.Crower HIPPO lifters will work but need to be checked every few thousand miles.
The more you idle or low RPM around the more they will wear.
Ya could have taken all the failed sets and put them in a RACE only engine and probably would not have had a failure. Like MG said spring pressure and ramp rate figure in a lot also.
I am running Schuebeck's with 260 on the seat and 760 on the nose on the street,so we will see how long they go.

 

Just to let you know...I just drove to florida and back to cleveland,oh with my solidroller setup. Still runs great.

 

Mindgame is exactly right....should be since he has had more experience than almost anyone here!

I have put almost 30k miles on solid roller LTx engines in the past 4 years (3 motors). IMO, it is all about having the right parts and I have no reason to doubt that your setup will be fine Jim.....especially with that light valvespring pressure. Lifters/valvesprings is where I have seen the wear over time (as expected). I too ran the 943 pacalloys in 2 of my past engines and they are designed for longer life (street-type applications). No matter what the spring is, I would still put new ones in every 8-10k miles.....even if that is once/year, its worth the tradeoff for the additional power.

Jason

 

I’m the Rodney Dangerfield of solid roller cams….. I can’t get no respect nor ones that don’t break after a short while. Way too much to go into, but I think I broke like 3 or 4 lifters and scored up at least a couple of cams. Sure killed a couple of motors for sure.

Other people seem to not have the same issues that I did but how many engines can ya ruin before ya figure out something ain’t right?? In my case, I now have a hydraulic holler cam very similar to what Jordon ran and loving it.

Only makes about 460 rwhp but with a killer powerband and a lot of piece of mind. Plus… were not done tuning it yet.

I just couldn’t afford to not go back to hydraulic.

 

I am with you Denny....I actually had a lifter fail that cost me a block (396ci), set of lifters, and a cam. I blame it on the lifters I used (long story), but I thought I would give solid rollers another try with a slightly different approach and I have not had a failure since then.

Jason

 

I'm sort of stuck, in that I have to have a 0.180" offset on my intake lifters to work with my 215cc AFRs. I'd assume that most of the "exotic" SBC heads require some sort of contortions where lifters and rocker offsets are involved, so I haven't (yet) decided to sell off my top end and start over with something else... but it wouldn't take much.

I don't care about maximum power any longer. I would like a semi-plug and play setup with less headache, but unfortunately I don't have the luxury of dropping back to a hydraulic roller with my current configuration.

I've got a Motown Lite 427 aluminum block on the way and I'll have to have my heads converted "back" to SBC coolant flow anyway, so now would be the time to make the decision... anyone want a set of 215cc RR head with Manley Ti valves that flow in the 335 cfm range? I've got a matching Hogan's intake as well.

 

I've got the same problem, I was going to run a solid flat tappet until I realized I was going to be running an offset rocker arm as well.

 

What's that song? "If i had a million dollar's, i would buy a _______" lol..