SBC hydraulic roller retrofit?

[Ron Ward]

My buddy called me the other night about a problem he was having with his Corvette. He told me that at about 3000 rpm, it was popping back through the carburetor with a regular tempo to the popping. Uh oh, I thought... Camshaft is bad.

Sure enough, we pulled the valve covers and rolled the engine over. The rocker arms on the #5 and #6 exhaust valves were barely moving. Off came the intake manifold and out came the lifters. Dang.... the bottom of the lifters were shaped like soup bowls....

So, we are weighing the pros and cons of installing a retrofit hydraulic roller cam/lifter setup. What companies offer a good product and is it really worth $500-$700 difference to upgrade to a hydraulic roller? Currently, the cam is a Comp Magnum series 292H. Any recommendations?


Ron

[TC]

Oh much did he spend on the 292??..... Just add that to the cost of the roller for not doing it right the first time.........

Go roller, don't look back...........

I like Comp and Crower, not much of a Crane guy, but I do here the stuff they are putting out now a days is better........

[squirrel]

I put a Comp hydraulic roller in my car several years ago, works fine. Make sure you understand what kind of distributor gear it needs, what it takes to keep the cam from moving forward (thrust button and thrust bearing timing chain set), and get the right valve springs and pushrods.

[1Y]

Yes Yes Yes! It is well worth the additional money spent, not only will you have less friction, less wear, you can have more aggressive lobe profiles. As squirrel says make sure and get the rest of the parts too. It is my understanding that if the comp cams part number ends with a -8 then the MSD melotonized distributor gear will work fine.

[Ron Ward]

I put a Comp hydraulic roller in my car several years ago, works fine. Make sure you understand what kind of distributor gear it needs, what it takes to keep the cam from moving forward (thrust button and thrust bearing timing chain set), and get the right valve springs and pushrods.

Dang.... stuff gets expensive when you add all that up... Thank you, though.


Ron

[squirrel]

Figure $800-1000 for the neat new parts. It took me years, and a few worn out cams, before I finally bit the bullet.

[oldsman71]

hubert set me up real good a couple of times, the last one i got had a cast iron drive gear
spent around $900 or so

[CDMBill]

There is much goodness in hydraulic roller land, and relative cost savings is one of them. Solid rollers effectively double that number to get to the level of optimization that Squirrel described for a hydraulic setup.

I'm working on a hydraulic roller configuration for a 582" motor I hope to run in the One Lap some day and as a more practical driver in the 71, when I retire it from Drag Week to build a light weight car.

My impression has always been that due to valve train mass a hydro roller setup should be optimized for a lower operating RPM range?

[TC]

My impression has always been that due to valve train mass a hydro roller setup should be optimized for a lower operating RPM range?

What's a lower RPM range??, plenty for LS guys are spinning hydraulic roller cams over 7000 rpm........

[jcharliem]

As many bum cam lobes I've seen and heard about on flat lifter cams... it surprises me that I've yet to have a problem with the solid lifter stick in my Chevelle with just shy of .600" lift. Maybe I "broke it in" correctly, or the synthetic oil (Red Line) has kept it alive. Or, maybe it's begun to wear and I don't know it yet. : /

[squirrel]

usually it requires putting some miles on the car.....I could usually get 20k out of them on my 55, but two of them died young, one within an hour, the other in a month.

[JeffMcKC]

What's a lower RPM range??, plenty for LS guys are spinning hydraulic roller cams over 7000 rpm........

That is a lower RPM range.

I also would not be just throwing out some of the numbers you see on boards, I know a couple guys ( If they are doing it others are too) that send higher PSI oil to the lifters to pump them up and keep them pumped to get by some class rules.

[TC]

That is a lower RPM range.

I also would not be just throwing out some of the numbers you see on boards, I know a couple guys ( If they are doing it others are too) that send higher PSI oil to the lifters to pump them up and keep them pumped to get by some class rules.

That sounds like a good idea...... I was already going to swap out the oil pump for an SLP unit when I do the cam swap on the '99 Camaro, I just never thought that the added oil pressure would benefit the lifters in that way........ Thanks Jeff, learn something new every day.......

[JeffMcKC]

Now remember they are not sending it to the rods and crank

[Beagle]

^^ That is very class specific stuff? Probably some nasty spring pressures to go along with it too?? LS has a lighter valve train than 23* SBC stuff too, from what I've seen. 8mm (5/16) valves v 11/32 probably help? Seems like every part of the valvetrain gets attetnion for those mills anyway, I don't think the stock LS pushrods would like it much. How long do the springs live? My bet is not long and not cheap.

I don't think I would set my goal much higher than 6000-6200 with any common Jegs off the shelf stuff (the kind of crap I run doesn't need that much) but I would feel more comfortable with a hyrdaulic roller and no metal flake It looks like a grand for about most stuff to rollerize it (cam, lifters, matching springs, pushrods, might as well new timing set, definitely a distributor gear, nose button mods).

Speaking of the gears, Comp is selling a polymer gear now. Anybody have any experiences with it? The Chinese put a "melonized" gear on their whammy distributors that is supposed to be compatible with both. I didn't see any weird wear on the crap-tastic carb conversion China-bay distributor I ran with a stock Ford roller, but I didn't drive it much before parking it either.