Hello everyone

After giving up on hydraulic roller lifters I got my hands on a good set of solid roller lifters that I want to use for my stalled Big Block build (the car has been collecting dust for five+ years).
The camshaft I have in the engine is made for hydraulic rollers. I know the solid lifters can be used on that, but adjustment will be somewhat difficult, and the camshaft I have was not really what I wanted anyway (it's the Straubtech one).

So I am searching for a very mild camshaft for mechanical lifters, but they all seem to be high lift, long duration (which I guess is quite natural as solids are normally used for wild engines in the Chevy world).
Any tips? The engine is a 489, Brodix Race-Rite OO heads, max allowed lift is .600''. Doesn't matter if it is for GenIV retro or the later models.
Must be mild with smooth idle and high vacuum.

 

What are your existing cam specs? Then it's easy to determine what you want.

Like higher rpm power or less duration

 

Hi gkull (it's George, right?), thank you for answering.

The existing hydraulic roller cam is:
Duration: 288 intake / 300 exhaust (229 / 241 @ .050'')
Lobe lift: .353 intake / .335 exhaust (0.600 / 0.570)
Open .050: 9.5 / 53.5
Close .050: 39.5 / / 7.5
Centerline: 105 / 113
LSA: 109

The engine ran very poorly with that camshaft, but whether it was the camshaft or the lifters that were at fault I don't know. It sounded like it wasn't firing on all cylinders when idling and had poor vacuum (11 inHg).

I just want something that runs and starts well. I think I have the rev. limiter set at 5000 or 5500 rpm.
I absolutely hate the rough idle humpty dumpty shaking the car apart camshafts that so many here seems to love.

/Karsten

 

Try contacting Crower or Isky sure they have a small solid roller, nothing wrong with them.
Or sell your lifters and buy the right Hyrdaulic roller.
Most any larger performance cam is going to have a noticebale idle. Was your tune on the money? That straub cam is not "big".

 

I agree...check tuning before pulling the cam.....that piece is not that radical at all.
One thing I notice is that Straub likes a specific split to his cams on duration @ .050 to the tune of 11-12 degrees......LS stuff is all like that with large lift numbers.

Jebby

 

Stock Chevy heads benefit from the greater exhaust duration but I think the OP would be better of with about a 5 degree split. The Brodix heads flow pretty well.

 

Thank you for answering.
I'm done with hydraulics, not worth the hassle anymore. I tried Morel (expensive but poorly designed) and Comp (cheap but poor/unusable quality), plus I got the solids cheap.

I am not experienced with tuning these engines, but to me it is basicly untunable. I can turn the distributor between 20 and 60 degree advance without any change in idle speed or quality.
I can turn the idle mixture screws until it dies without much change.
It is not firing evenly on all cylinders, and it stinks from the exhaust.
I know for sure that the camshaft is timed correctly (checked timing events on cylinder 1 with a timing wheel). Maybe there is something wrong with the camshaft or it is really the Morel lifters that are causing the problem...

Short story is I wan't something that is as close to a stock engine as possible, but with rollers so I don't have to worry about oil. Horsepower level is irrelevant for me. If it makes the 400HP the stock engine made and it runs smootly (think BMW engine then I'm very happy. I only got the stroker kit because it was way cheaper than building the 427 that I really wanted.

Thank you for answering
As I understand it, the low LSA number means that it can't idle well?

 

I was looking at comparable comp cams Extreme HR cams like the 230/236. They list the valve events at .006 lift so your .050 valve events are not easy to compare.

One problem that jumps right out and it is done to make a mild cam sound rumpity rump is to create intake reversion at idle. For the all show and NO GO crowd. The lower the LSA number and in your case 109 has more over lap compared to street motors with 114 - 120 LSA. Then I see that you installed the cam 4 degrees advanced. That is the 105 number from 109. So your intake valve is opening already to .050 lift 9.5 degrees before the Piston Top Dead Center. Which causes intake reversion and poor idle qualities, low vacuum.

Fixes: You can increase your idle RPM to say 900 rpm. You can set your distributer for say 18 degrees initial advance and a total of 38 @ 3000 rpm with no vacuum advance hooked up for checking. Then you adjust the four corner idle screws for highest idle rpm and vacuum. You might have to keep turning down the idle rpm as the A/F ratio gets more correct.

Harder fix is to change the timing set keyway to retard your cam 4 degrees. That would instantly improve the idle quality and vacuum. Give you a broader TQ curve with a little more top end power. My 434 has a custom cam that I had made with 4 degrees of retard ground in so the lobe center would be like 8 degrees retarded compared to what you have. I wanted top end power with the highest overall TQ average over the widest rpm power band.


From Com Cams: Keep in mind that to advance the cam, you must lower the intake centerline. For example, if our cam has a lobe separation of 110 degrees. Moving the centerline to 106 degrees advances the cam 4 degrees. If we change the centerline to 112 degrees, this would be 2 degrees retarded.

3-Keyway Crank Sprockets (cloyes.com)

 

I installed the camshaft with the dots alligned. Are you saying that the timing is 4 degrees advanced when it is installed like that? The numbers I wrote here is just what is on the camshaft specification card.
"Idle", if you can call it that, is already at 900+ RPM.
The only solid roller camshafts with less than .600'' lift that I've been able to find are these, but they are advertised as "performance" camshafts:
https://www.crower.com/camshafts/che...illet-cam.html
http://iskycams.com/shop/index.php?m...roducts_id=693

 

You need to look at this. 3-Keyway Crank Sprockets (cloyes.com) The crank sprocket has 3 dots. Yours probably does also. look at the illustration. the crankshaft gear has 3 marks, (Square for retarding the cam 4 degree, triangle for advancing the cam 4 degrees. 0 for straight up)

Your cam was probably ground with 4 degree advance. Like mine was made with 4 degrees of retard when lining up the "O"

You need to retard your cam 4 degrees and see how it runs. Lots simpler than installing a new cam.

If you have multi keyways on the cam sprocket you could even add 2 more degrees and retard it something like 6 degrees retarded compared to how it is now. It would be like a different engine. It also adds more piston to valve clearance (not that you have a problem )

I'm a solid roller person. Modern grinds are made with low lash numbers. those two cams are large lash .024 -.028 That just beats up the roller wheels and rockers. I'm also big on billet steel cams with sleeved on dizzy gear.

 

Yes, I installed it with the standard (0?) mark.
I have the Rollmaster CS2040 set. It looks like it can advance/retard 8 degrees.

I would actually prefer to get rid of that camshaft (not much difference when I have the chain off anyway), but it looks like there aren't any available that fit my requirements.

These are my clearances with the current setup:

 

Check out the 1st 2 or 3 listed here.
http://schneidercams.com/chev_BBC-solidroller.aspx

 

What is the engine doing that makes you think it is a lifter issue? I have a similar Straub cam in my 467 I built with AFR heads and morel lifters. I had no issues just firing it up right off. What carb and distributor are you running?

 

I'm a bit unclear about that too.

 

Agreed. I have had Howard (made by Morel) lifters in my 496 big block for almost 10 years and 20k miles with no issues. My hydraulic roller cam is 240/245@ .050" and right at .625". Idles at 850 rpm and will easily rev to 6200 rpm (which is where I set the red line).

 

Good info.

I put my engine together about a dozen years ago, and at the time it seemed that a lot of guys were having durability issues with aftermarket roller cam kits. Made me nervous, so I stuck with a HFT cam, as I always had good luck with them (and still do). Your experience gives me hope.

 

Thank you, I didn't know about Schneider. That gives me some options.

 

Hi

Mine also starts very well. It is actually the only thing it does well in my opinion.

What it does is described above. Won't tune and is not running evenly on all cylinders. When I unplug the HT lead one at a time some of the cylinders appear to have a greater impact on idle RPM than others, but it is hard to know for sure because it idles so poorly. I tried all the tricks looking for a vacuum leak.
Made me think maybe the valves aren't closing properly. The fact that after standing still for 3+ years some of the lifters can still not be compressed makes me believe that even more.

Carb is a new Holley style, don't remember the name (three letters?), 850cfm, should be a good one. Distributor is MSD (8572?) with an external timing box. I get same poor result with other carbs and distributors.

The Morels that i built the engine with don't work. It takes 1-2 minutes from starting the engine until oil reaches the rockers. I'm told it is because Morel needs very thin oil. Since the rest of the engine isn't built for that, it is a pointless product.
I then got a single set of Comp lifters (for one cylinder) just to verify that the Morel lifters vere causing the oiling problem. With the Comp the oiling works, but the intake lifter had a colapsed/broken spring (nice work Comp, a 50% hit rate).
Long story short: No more needlesly complicated parts for me. Living in Europe I can't just return the faulty parts, so I have to stick with stuff that has the best chance of working the first time.
Perhaps most of all I just want to get rid of all the stuff that the liar sold me and then take it from there.

 

With a mild low lift HR cam I have installed solid rollers before. I Had to use standard length push rods and I went from 145 pound seat springs to 200 pound seat springs. Because of the mild lobes on a comp cams extreme series hr 242/248 I was able to use .012 /.014 lash.

Your running hot oil pressure determines the weight of engine oil required. HRollers get noisy with thin oil and low pressure. The oil bleeds off so fast that the lifter never pumps up so the lash opens up.

A leak down tester will show if your HR lifters are over adjusted causing leaky valves. It's really easy to adjust h lifters. Just never put a bind on the push rod when adjusting, your can roll the push rod in your fingers at Zero lash hot

 

The first thing that needs to happen here is a leak down test.
How were you verifying that the Morel lifters took two minutes to get oil past them? Unless the basecircle of the cam is WAY off.....or the lifters were just the wrong part number.....it is almost impossible for a lifter to NOT pass oil through it to the pushrod......and for ALL to do it suggests a problem other than the lifter itself. I have seen bad lifters, but never a whole set at one time.....one I have a bad hydrualic one, I pop it open and inspect the discs/plunger/spring inside.

Jebby