The Chevelle is my street cruiser/bruiser. It's got a 383 with Eagle rotating assembly, performer rpm heads, performer rpm air gap and just under went some more modifications. It had a Comp XE 284 hydraulic flat tappet cam and out the box heads and ran 12.64. I just ported the heads just like I mentioned above and put a small solid roller cam in it. (Erson 278) That dropped me to 11.59 best so far with only two runs. It also has 3.55 gears and 3000 stall with 295/50-15 ET street radials. The rear has stock boxed lower control arms and relocation brackets.

 

solid roller cam in non roller motor? i was thinking about that but didnt want the hassle for no major gain on normal driving, but 1 second from 12.6 down to 11.5 holy wow, i need to learn how to port good and get a solid roller in there.

 

A roller cam will make more hp in almost all circumstances due to the area "under the curve". The best way to see the evidence is to look at a flat tappet cam lobe and look at a roller cam lobe. The flat tappet goes to a point kinda like a triangle and the roller is oval. This gives you a lot more duration at higher valve lifts where heads flow decent numbers.

The roller cam I went to is smaller at the seat (278 vs 284) and smaller at .050" (238 vs 240) than the flat tappet, but takes a big lead from .075" on up and keeps the valve open a lot longer at peak lift. What this resulted into was more cylinder pressure down low for better torque due to the intake valve closing sooner (smaller seat duration bleeds off less cylinder pressure) and more torque and hp throughout the rpm band due to greater air flow from the added duration of the valve being open longer at higher lifts.