Here's a quick, somewhat interesting fact...the NASCAR Busch cars run a roller cam, but the Winston Cup cars (that regularly turn 9000+RPM) run a flat tappet solid lifter cam.
You may now procede with your regular discussion

Dep

 

Just a thought, if the cost were the same and if you had to keep the duration to a certain degree so your brakes would work and you also wanted to get the most power out of motor what cam would select a flat tappet or roller ?

 

Best bang for your buck is a solid non-roller cam. Setting the clearance may be a big deal the first time but you need to work out the proceedure. It is simple. It helps to take notes and map the movement of the clearances. Normally after a while things stabilize and you can predict when you need to set the clearance again. I learned this on a ZX11 Kawasaki motorcycle. The Kaw is a real pain in the butt because you have to disassemble the top half of the bike to get to the head. I trended the change in clearance and saved myself a bunch of labor. By the way, same number of valves on the Kaw as a Chevy V8. And the adjustment was with shims which is slightly more complicated.

Hydraulic rollers are great if you have the money and you not spinning the motor up to heaven. They are heavy but allow a really fast ramp on the cam profile. I've been interested in a solid roller but have heard many mixed reports about their durability on the street. I'm going to send the question to Marlon Davis the tech editor of Hot Rod magazine. He knows more about this stuff than god. If Marlon says something you can bank on it.

 

Best bang for your buck is a solid non-roller cam. Setting the clearance may be a big deal the first time but you need to work out the proceedure. It is simple. It helps to take notes and map the movement of the clearances. Normally after a while things stabilize and you can predict when you need to set the clearance again. I learned this on a ZX11 Kawasaki motorcycle. The Kaw is a real pain in the butt because you have to disassemble the top half of the bike to get to the head. I trended the change in clearance and saved myself a bunch of labor. By the way, same number of valves on the Kaw as a Chevy V8. And the adjustment was with shims which is slightly more complicated.

Hydraulic rollers are great if you have the money and you not spinning the motor up to heaven. They are heavy but allow a really fast ramp on the cam profile. I've been interested in a solid roller but have heard many mixed reports about their durability on the street. I'm going to send the question to Marlon Davis the tech editor of Hot Rod magazine. He knows more about this stuff than god. If Marlon says something you can bank on it.

 

The answer to this is simple. A roller cam gives the most area under the curve since the rams can be steeper but duration the same but this is not the question on this post.
For the dollar a flat tappet cam is better. For $160CDN I can get almost any flat tappet crane cam and lifters run me about $100.
The best I could do on the roller cam was $400 CDN for the cam and
about the same for the lifters, then I needed special springs.
For the dollar you can not beat the flat tappet cam. I am not a fan of hydraulic cams and both my vet and mustang runs solids and they are adjusted once a year and that is all.

 

Like I just posted I paid about $800 CDN for my cam and roller lifters. For all the flat tappet cams I tried before and I believe there were 7 I paid $260 for cam and lifters. I just feel for the money the flat tappet at 1/3 the cost of a roller setup was a better deal. I run flat tappet in the mustang. Lash is not a problem. Like I said I do run a roller cam and roller rockers but if I wanted to build an econo motor I would not look at roller cams. The stainless roller rockers were another $500.
I also went from a heavily ported LS6 high rise aluminum intake to a Victor junior at the same time as the cam swap and that combination fell flat.

 

One other interesting fact you have OMMITTED! Busch and Crastman Truck races are less than 400 miles in duration. I like hydraulic rollers for long term street useage, solid rollers on the other hand, must be checked about every 5-6K miles for brinelling (flattening) of the roller needle bearings to prevent catastrophic lifter failures. The ultimate power of a good running solid roller motor is hard to beat but, the maintenance is increased even though they hold their lash adjustment for very long periods of time when compared to their flat tappet cousins. The big problem with flat tappet cams is the reduction of the Zinc extreme pressure additives in current motor oils that seems to be causing failures of agressive cam profiles. Valvoline has a "not for street use" racing oil with a good zinc additive package and G.M. Engine Oil Suppliment can be added to the current motor oils to keep that aggressive flat tappet cam alive. One word of warning, many of the "DEAL" roller lifter sets being sold on Ebay are used Busch/Truck sets and, I wouldn't install these into my motor as they are really fighting to keep them alive for the 300-400 miles thay run in a race weekend (Buyer BEWARE!) The Comp Cams "Endurex" series of roller lifters does seem to live a little longer than older designs but not a significantly longer life (I would check them at 8-10K miles if they were in my motor.)