Solid Roller Cam Worth it??
#1
Solid Roller Cam Worth it??
Solid Roller vs. Hydraulic Roller- Is a solid roller worth the maintenance? Do the Solid rollers perform a lot better? Is the only down side setting the valve lash every once and a while?
#2
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todays hyd roller cams can make good power,imo a solid roller is just not needed for 99% of performance boats.
#5
Gold Member
Gold Member
I bought a old supercat engine and it has a 55mm solid roller setup. The cam is useless to me as it's very radical but I'm keeping the mechanical roller setup.
A nice side benefit to the mechanical roller is that if you get one valve with a wacky lash number, you know something is amiss and you better check things out.
A nice side benefit to the mechanical roller is that if you get one valve with a wacky lash number, you know something is amiss and you better check things out.
#6
#7
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this is a little like asking if I should buy a Ferrari or a Hyundai. both will get you there but one does it a bit differently than the other. you need to address what you are trying to do before you decide how to do it.
#9
Charter Member #394
Charter Member
I should add that what makes the solid work is the T&D shaft rockers set up properly for your heads. Stud girdles just don't work on my engines anyway; not even sbc, ran solid anyway due to 7600 shift point in road racing engine. Had to reset every day if run hard.
Last edited by SFOcean; 07-21-2014 at 03:45 PM.
#10
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What maintenance is there with mechanicals? Correct me if I'm wrong, but you should never be gaining lash unless there is a problem. They use the same poly nuts, rocker studs, rocker arms and pushrod guide plates. Everyone says that you need to check them every year. Every time that I checked mine they never moved. I switched from solid cams last year that were lashed at 0.026" hot to hydraulic roller cams that I am running solid lifters on that are lashed to 0.007" and they are silent. If I here any little different noise in my the valve train there usually is something wrong. This can be masked for a while with hydraulic lifters.
I don't run solids on hydraulic cams to be different or for the little extra hp gain, it's because I'm cheap. I had just spent a lot of $$$ on Isky Red Zone solid lifters and I didn't want to buy 2 new sets of HR lifters for more $$$. So I compromised and sent my Isky's out to get rebuilt for $20/lifter.
I don't know the OP's build specs and agree that solids are really not necessary for most, but around 6000RPM's I would still go with solids.
I don't run solids on hydraulic cams to be different or for the little extra hp gain, it's because I'm cheap. I had just spent a lot of $$$ on Isky Red Zone solid lifters and I didn't want to buy 2 new sets of HR lifters for more $$$. So I compromised and sent my Isky's out to get rebuilt for $20/lifter.
I don't know the OP's build specs and agree that solids are really not necessary for most, but around 6000RPM's I would still go with solids.