I'm building 383 and now is the time to choose a cam. I have used XE262 in my 350 with nice results. If I go hydraulic I will use again.
I heard using a solid gives a more crisp throttle response which made me think about it. I dont mind having to adjust once in while.

Need some advice. What should I know about using solid in SBC?

 

Personally I like the solid cams. There is very little maint. on them contrary to what use to be believed. As for the crisper throttle response maybe. The solids will rev higher than the hyd cams. If you keep the revs below 5500 you should be OK with a hyd. I run my solid to 7000 with no problems. The hyd cam is good for a daily driver but performance you will be better with a solid cam.

 

Hyd.

 

If you want a daily driver cruiser, and ride comfort and mileage are your two priorities, hydraulic. If you want to hear the chatter of little rockers of yester-year, along with more power, go solid. Do you wax, or drive?

 

Solid.

Brett

 

So valvetrain noise and adjustments... but VETDRMS mentioned mileage. Wouldn't solid lifters be more efficient? Or does it have to do with the profile? I have a stroker build in my future and I'm wondering about mild solids...

-Chris

 

Sorry, I was just poking fun at the less performance oriented of the crowd, NOT to offend anyone.

As far as MPG gain from solid? Well, a good reason to go solid is for high rpm, thus higher duration, lift, ect... I think in 90% of the situations a good hydraulic will do the job and last a long time. A solid cam will usually give you more lift with less duration, this is good to get the lift number into the heads peak flow area and hold it there. It will also allow your seat timing numbers to be a little more conservative and boost vacuum, and idle.

Example: I switched from a Comp XR288 HR with seat to seat specs of 288* intake and 294* exhaust, but .050 figures of 236/242 and .520/.540 lift. This cam only made at best 8" of idle vacuum. I switched to a "bigger" Comp Solid Roller: 280R. With seat duration of 280/286, but .050 duration of 242/248 and .576/.580 lift. This cam idles at ~950rpm with 14" of vacuum, and pulls HARD up to 7000rpm.
Of the two, leaving almost everything equal, I prefer the solid roller.

One thing I would suggest if you go solid is a stud girdle, this will "lock" the poly locks in place. My valve lash was set nearly 4000 miles ago, and has not changed (these miles included 46 drag strip passes as well).

I can hear the valvetrain cruising down the highway over 3" exhaust, bullet mufflers and exhaust dumps at the rear tire. I LOVE it.

 

[QUOTE=VETDRMS] Do you wax, or drive?QUOTE]


says it all

 

Except for all out racing the hdyraulic should be on par with a flat tappet solid. Someone mentioned a roller, that's a different animal in comparison to the standard hdy/solid. You can turn a hydraulic to over 7000 rpms, I've done it.
There maybe a little more maintance with solid lifters due to checking the valve lash but it is not a weekly or monthly thing. Perhaps once a year or every couple of years, after initial break-in.
Either one will be fine. The bigger decesion is choising the right profile of the cam for your application. A 383 can stand a little more cam versus the 350.

 

I definitely dont wax.

But the car has been my daily D for almost 3 years now. Just 5 mile round trips to work. I get my fill of WOT's almost every day so it's driven hard. I rev to around 5500 max now, but if solid would get me more revs I think I'm leaning that way. I'm saving for new heads so for now I'm stuck with my redone 186s.

 

I would say it comes down to personal preference if you put the maintenance issue aside. Eliminating grocery getter applications and sticking with street performance duty narrows the decision process. If I were intensionaly building a 327 or smaller engine for this duty it would probably have a solid cam. The small cubes need to rev if they are to produce additional output over stock. A 350 cube motor can go either way but the longer the stroke, the better bottom end you need if you want it to stay together at hig RPM. The 383 is great for close to stock Vettes because it does not need to rev high to produce smiles and the rest of the car's drivetrain is suited to the RPM range and drivabillity produced by a simple low RPM stroker addition. The low RPM grunt suits the rest of the car well so more expensive (engine and non-engine) mods are not required. Hydraulic cams will work fine for that application. This type of build does not need the additional RPM available from the solid lifter setup. There is some amount of benefit from a solid lifter cam at lower RPM but it is not a lot. I would SWAG about 15 Ft-LBS or so.

If you are trying to maximise the ouput, you will want to spin the RPM higher. This involves a trade-off between low RPM drivabillity and maximum power output. The higher RPM demands is what makes the higher RPM applications more expensive and have less drivability.

Bottom line, It sounds like you want to try a solid lifter cam with this buildup. This is a great opportunity to experiment with them. Be sure to pick a solid lifter cam that matches your compression ratio and drivetrain and let us know how you like it.

-Mark.

 

Just about 12 years on my solid cam motor and I've been very happy. I might adjust or should I say check the rocker arm lash about 1-2 times a year or after some thrashing my 4 speed at the drag strip.

With the new extreem ramp profile cams I think that solid cams don't have the advantage over the same duration H-flat cams that they once did. With modern springs it's nothing to see 7000 rpm H-flat cammed motors.

By the way my Crane cam solid does have 238/248 duration and something like .526/.543 lift 114 lc 1.6 rocker arms. It's really peppy in my 355 ci. So a 383 ci would make it more mild.

 

Go hydraulic. You can use a more radical cam, remember, in a stroker than a 350 and still be very streetable. The longer stroke somehow absorbs the rough idle of a lopey cam better than otherwise.

If you use roller rockers, they will sound just like you have solid lifters anyway!

 

I decided to try solid with slightly more aggressive numbers than the Xe262.

If I dont like it I can change back when new heads are put on.

Thanks for the inputs.

 

262 is really a small cam. Less than say a stock L-82. More ci require more duration to fill the cylinders.

 

I always go solid

 

I would guess you will have detonation problems with an increase in displacement and a small cam. It is easy to build compression on these bigger displacement small blocks. What C/R will you be planning on building into the 383? The C/R needs to match the cam.

The L-82 cam will work well in a 383 to produce a very torquey combo. I know a guy running a 383 with the L-46/L-82 cam and Edelbrock aluminum heads and he said it realy moves out even on cheap gas.

The Comp 282s is a good solid lifter cam for that application as well.

-Mark.

 

My CR is going to be 10.3 for now.