Just wondering if anyone has used one in a 429 or 460. I'm building a 502 stroker this winter and want to use a roller cam. Just want to know if you all think using a roller cam is worth the money or if I should stick with a solid lifter flat tappet design. The motor will probably see duty in my mud truck and maybe in my street legal pull truck. Thanks in advance.

 

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 18-Nov-01 AT 02:10 PM (EST)]I would be interested to hear the answer to this one from someone that's got experience as well. My thoughts on the matter are that if you can install a roller cam for a reasonable cost it would be worth it. I think that in general a good roller cam will be good for 5-10% more peak torque than a flat tappet design, because of the more aggressive profile and better cylinder sealing for a given amount of airflow. I don't know how costly it would be to put a roller in though. I suppose it depends partially upon how aggressive the lift is. If there's a lot of lift you would probably have to make modifications to the pushrods, rockers, and/or valve springs. Just my $0.02.

 

I put a roller cam in my 460 that are in my jet boat and I love it. I don’t know how much the whole kit is because I bought a set of blue thunder heads at the same time and had them set it up for the cam. The cam was $200 and I forgot how much what the lifters where. I also bought a roller cam set up for a 454 that is in my other boat and that kit was just over $500 that was for the springs, retainers, locks, and lifts from Chet Herbert in Anaheim CA. Hope this helps.

 

I seriously considered this as well. I went a head and set up my heads with some good springs that could handle the higher lift to go with a roller cam. The only drawback in my mind (with a solid roller) was the need for frequent adjustments. I know Crane makes hydraulic roller lifters but none of their cams were very appealing. I talked to several guys who thought the valves would need to be adjusted every few hundred miles. Since then I have seen several stories in various magazines about people using solid rollers and going a few thoudans miles without adjusting them. I know my old 235 Chevy with a flat tappet cam was supposed to be adjusted every 10K-12K. It seemed to me like a roller could go even longer as you would get less wear. With my research, if you go with a good hydraulic lifter setup you'll spend about $100-130 for the cam, $70 for lifters, and about $100 for springs. With a roller it's about $200 for a cam, and $150-400 for lifters, and $100 for springs. For basically $150 more than hydraulic you can go with a full roller set-up. The "cheap" $150 roller lifters, I mentioned above, are available from Jim Cook performance. To me price was not really an issue. I went with hydraulic lifters for ease of operation and infrequent maintenance. Now I wish I would have gone roller, as the truck has seen only 1000 miles over the past 6 months.

 

>Just wondering if anyone has used one in a 429 or 460. I'm
>building a 502 stroker this winter and want to use a roller
>cam. Just want to know if you all think using a roller cam
>is worth the money or if I should stick with a solid lifter
>flat tappet design. The motor will probably see duty in my
>mud truck and maybe in my street legal pull truck. Thanks in
>advance.

I used a solid roller cam in a drag car years ago (514 in Ford). A solid roller will be worth at least an extra 40 HP but the cost is expensive per HP. Do NOT buy cheap roller lifters...this is the second area of failure with the first being cheap valve springs. If your going to keep your lift under .600 inch (typically a "street" roller) your lifters, springs, valve material is not as critical. Once you go over .600 in. lift I would only buy the best. As far as checking valve lash a street roller should be O.K. being checked once a year.

 

Can't comment on the roller cam, but solid lifters, once the correct lash is correctly set, require no more attention than checking pre-load on hydraulics. As DeenHylton said, once a year for solids (or hydraulics) should be sufficient for a steet motor.