I have a 67' 327 and wanted to put in roller rockers and roller lifters. The cam I have in it is the L79 222/222 447/447 cam and isnt a roller....can I still use roller rockers and roller lifters...or just roller rockers or neither, lol?! Thanks---

 

You can use roller rockers. You can use roller lifters providing they have the vertical or horizontal link bar to prevent them from rotating in the lifter bore-wheel needs to run true obviously. you CANNOT run roller lifters on your current non-roller cam, reason:

flat tappet cams are ground with a certin degress of rearward pitch, all the lifters contacting the cams surface help thrust the cam rearward into the distributor so it self aligns so to speak. If you try to run roller lifters only a certain small percentage of the lifters wheel will contact the cam, not to mention you will need high spring pressure to ensure the lifter with the super low friction does not bounce up and down on the cam lobe pre maturely wearing the cams lobes.

A roller cam lobe is ground flat so the roller lifters whel makes full contact to the lobe area. since a roller cam is ground flat per say, you are now required to shim the front of the cam to keep it in place and prevent cam walk-it will literally try to push it's way out of the front of the block and hence retainer plates, cam buttons, stiffer timing chain covers are necessary.

 

FANTASTIC reply!!! Thanks alot brotha, I just learned alot!!! I appreciate it---

Now is this just a basic swap or do I need to plan on changing valve springs or anything? I am going to go to 1.6 rollers, they will clear the old TALL valve covers right? How do I know if I need 3/8 or 7/16 studs?!---

 

c ur other post I responded to for rocker studs..but in a nutshell, 3/8 studs are plenty strong for your application.

the 1.6 rockers should easily clear standard valve covers. you will need to check and most likely get shorter pushrods to keep geometry correct. if you tried to keep the same pushrods and are using a higher ratio rocker your going to place the center of the rocker roller tip on the outside edge of the valve stem which is bad news and you might also run into trouble with the fulcrum of the rocker arm hitting the valve spring/retainer.

Only way to check this is with either an adjustible pushrod checker (best) or one of those cheap plastic rocker arm checkers and use calipers to check all measurements and order the correct length.

 

If I got smaller pushrods wouldnt that take away from getting the 1.6? Would 1.5 be better for my setup? I am going to put a 142 Weiand supercharger on when I mess with the rockers ( just an FYI )---

The only SHORTER pushrods I found in summit were from Comp Cams and they are -.1 and 5/16 diameter, is that what I would be looking for?---

 

It wont take away from anything since the additional lift is past the fulcrum point, but since your changing lift your changing valvetrain angles that must be kept in check otherwise your going to have alot more problems tearing stuff up and not making any use of the new toys your installing. FWIW, we've had many budget guys at our track make the switch from 1.5 to 1.6 and it did nothing at all. typically anything 20hp and under gains you will not see at a race track providing everything is in good tune, so take that for what it's worth and decide if the added expense is going to really pay off. I dont think you'll notice a difference, and I know you wont be able to if making the change while installing a huffer. The 3/8" studs are a good idea and a necessity IMO so your not pulling the stock pressed studs out, but often the additonal rocker lift does not offer all they're claimed to add when you get away from idiotic car magazines and paid promotions of products and step into the real world.

 

Wow that helped alot, THANKS FOR YOUR POSTS ---

 

you want to convert to roller cam,get out at least 800-900 bucks min.heck mor elike 1k plus
roller cams around 300
retro lifters=350 ish
pushrods=166
new springs=150
bronze dist gear=40
thurst button to keep cam in =30
gasket set to replace parts=30
still want a roller
keep in mind i didnt add the 200 dollars for roller lifters