I'm curious... Who has broke a rocker on an FE? What were the conditions under which it broke?

Not the rocker shaft, not the rocker stand, the ROCKER ARM. Honestly, I've never heard of one breaking. So aside from the slight frictional advantage roller rockers give you, what's the point of spending more money on aftermarket rockers? I mean, I can go down to Napa and get replacement adjustable type rockers for 1/3 of what the cheapest aftermarket stuff goes for.

 

Well Kurt, I was baby sitting my buddies 70 SCJ Mach 1, years ago , and I missed a shift (not use to his V-gate shifter) and broke one...

I was usually pulling shift's at 6K and missing that one in 3rd...I think I only saw the tach hit 6500 maybe 6600rpm...But a good set of rollers that wont happen...and less heat,friction.and plus depending on the build, 15 plus HP.. and they will let the motor spool up quicker also..

Plus there easier on the tops of the Valve's....

JMO....

Russ

 

they don't break often, back in the 60's we used stock ones on circle track motors turning all kinds of rpm (I don't remember any aftermarket ones availible at that time, we just ran with what we had..and I still run them

 

Well I figure it this way....If some of the 427 back then were pulling 7000rpm...Remember the Movie back in 66 - 67 Redline 7000?

They will take a lickin and keep on tickin.... But if your looking to reduce heat,make it easier on the Valve train,and make a little more HP and Tq... and have the motor spool up quicker..then rollers are the way you want to go!

Proven Fact!! LOL..but it is.....

Russ

 

I'll agree with the benefits of roller,I would go that way for a drag engine, street engine, don't think so $$$$$$$$$$$$ for a couple of horse you will probaly never use, and the stock valve train will go 100000 miles with no problem and most of us will never put that kind of milage on them

 

Awww, but its always nice to have when ya need it!! Oh hell thats right I forgot you still live in SoCal.. Of course ya cant use it there!! JK!! Well ?

Russ

 

and when they make us junk all the old trucks I could use all the horse power I can get to get out of town.......LOL

 

What was it that Gtex broke on his Erson? If it was the arm well I remember Erson backing up their product and Greg seemed very impressed with the service. I think I'm gonna try to look up his post from a while back.

Madmike33

 

Yeah forget my last post I looked it up and the trouble with Gregs Erson was a stand.
other than that I don't think I've ever heard of an arm breaking. Personally if I'm spending a large amount on my engine I like over build in certain areas to protect that investment.

Madmike33

 

Hrm, so Russ broke one quite a while back. Doesn't sound too regular of an occurance. If I was building a high RPM street motor, I'd spend the money on things that DO break, like rocker stands, rocker shafts, pushrods...

But hey, roller rockers are great. The advantage of lower friction cannot be denied, as well as the obvious advantage when using high lift cams. The only problem is, I've heard about problems with them holding up over the long haul in street motors. Something about needle bearings? Maybe that was only one manufacturer. Plus, it's probably just me being paranoid (again...), but I just dont like the idea of rockers made out of aluminum. Seems to me like they'd fatigue over time.

Now if they had a iron roller rocker without the needle bearings; I'd be all over that!

 

Well Kurt they do make a Ductile Iron roller tip rocker.....Its just not a shaft mount...LOL...

Russ

 

yup, no rocker issues here. Just tweaked stands. Erson took care of it, even though they suspectd (and rightfully so) operator error. Although, I'm still not sure what the failure mechanism was. I hope it was the lack of washers on the stand studs, since I have remedied that with some high quality ARP washers. But, those washers aren't much wider than the stud nots, but it's all the stands allow for.

in my few years of messing with the FE, I've never heard of anybody breaking a rocker.


speaking of rockers, I need to be adjusting mine.. Yawn!!!

 

Greg , I think the problem you had was false torque readings on the Bolts from not using a washer..... JMO...

Get them Lifters Preloaded.. We want to see a SMOKEY Burnout Video!!

Russ

 

I just adjusted the passenger side. It started getting warm and I started getting thos e"back to work tonight" blues. I did have a good weekend. I did some serious shop cleaning. Most people would not recognize it. Yesterday we hade 3 Yamaha FJR1300s in the shop as well as the 52 Mercedes, plus all my tools. And we had plenty of room to do the bike tuning (throttle body synchronizations on EFI 1.3l 4 bangers).

 

Ratsmoker used to warn us about breaking rocker arms when upgrading to a bigger cam. He had pics to prove it too! He's the one, back in the day, who talked me into spending 500 bucks on these purty blue Doves.