Flat tappet to solid roller...

EchoSixMike said
The issue is that lash pounds the needle bearings in the roller lifters, they go flat/out of round, then skid, then everything rapidly goes to Hell after that. Improved pressure oiling lifters and bushing lifters are methods to counter this. This isn't a maximum kill effort, so there's not going to be the spring pressures that accelerate these issues, but it's still something to concern yourself with.

If you switch to a roller cam, you're going to need new valve springs. Roller lifters are heavy and use aggressive lobes(otherwise what's the point?) and will need serious springs to control valve motion. Failure to control the valve train properly will rapidly blow everything up. The Chrysler stuff has a nice .904 tappet, we can use pretty decent flat tappet cams.

The Comp MM lobes in the 240 degree range have .550'ish lift with the 1:5 rocker, but if you currently have 1.6 ratio, going to 1.5 is a step backwards.

Roller lifters and cam profiles will make more power, certainly, the question, as always, is the power worth what you're willing to pay for it? S/F.....Ken M

Yes, I am worried about such failure too. I was looking at Isky rollers with bushings...
Solid flat tappet seems like a simple upgrade in my case, also cheap. The solid cam I mentioned in earlier posts seems like perfect fit.
I have twp sets of roller rockers so swapping 1.6 with 1.5 is no big deal, if I get same lift with 1.5 and bigger cam as with 1.6 and smaller cam what is the difference?

My understanding with valve springs was that its mostly lift related. If my current setup has 544 lift and works well, does it really mean that more agressive lobes on solid roller will make my springs no good?
Ofcourse if it turns out I need to change springs, I can live with it, also I can do it with heads on the engine so not a problem.
Just want to make this cam swap right and enjoy it :-)

I am also curious what power gains I can expect. Some guys I talked to say 50-60hp which seems like a lot.
I remember that going to solid flat tappet in 383 added over 30hp extra. At first we tried to play with putting solid lifters on hydraulic cam (we had used parts and cam was not so great anymore) and it gave over 20hp gain. Then we swapped with new cam and set of lifters, broke them in and were really happy with end result, the 383 made just a bit over 450hp which felt like a good result. Also it ran much nicer with solid setup. Idle sounded much better.

I will see what cam manufacturers tell me and post some info here. I only talked to Comp at this point. Will see what Isky, Hughes, Lunati and others say.