Mechanical Roller Lifters

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Rmoore

Rmoore

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What is a good second choice mechanical roller lifter? As oppose to $ 1200 to $ 1500 merrails. 500/400 Trick Flow 270 heads. Trick Flow Track intake. Camshaft yet to be determined...
 
Crane are in mine. Morel was on BO for 6 mo at the time. Couldn't wait any longer.

Edit* mines a SB sorry...didn't read the category. But mine have been great for 10 years
 
Thanks guys.. I guess i really ask the wrong question. Or shouldn't have ask at all. Because from what i have figured out is that there really is not a second best. I will buy good one or i will buy cheap. So Yellow Rose your point is well taken. Just do it and get it over with. I think it rediculus to pay that kind of money for lifters. I have to much money invested to do it any other way.
 
If you haven't picked the cam then how do you know what valve spring pressure you're going to run? If you don't know the springs then how are you making the decision on lifters? Comp lifters will last a long time on some lobes. Crane lifters can handle a little more load, etc. A typical 500 inch Mopar is going to be all finished by 6500 with 270 heads so you don't need the super high end stuff in the valve train.

If you're plugging up the engine with a Trick Flow intake then it isn't going to be a high rpm monster anyway. Do yourself a favor and call Dwayne at Porter Racing Heads. He can work with you to spec a cam and he'll tell you the matching springs and lifters to go with it.
 
Bush your lifter bores (controls oil volume and lifter geometry) and buy a solid roller lifter that pressure feeds the bearing. Like a Bam
 
AndyF said:
If you haven't picked the cam then how do you know what valve spring pressure you're going to run? If you don't know the springs then how are you making the decision on lifters? Comp lifters will last a long time on some lobes. Crane lifters can handle a little more load, etc. A typical 500 inch Mopar is going to be all finished by 6500 with 270 heads so you don't need the super high end stuff in the valve train.

If you're plugging up the engine with a Trick Flow intake then it isn't going to be a high rpm monster anyway. Do yourself a favor and call Dwayne at Porter Racing Heads. He can work with you to spec a cam and he'll tell you the matching springs and lifters to go with it.
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Andy, do the trickflow and victor really hold a stroker down? I got my victor to flow about as much as my heads , but not sold on the small plenum .
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AndyF said:
If you haven't picked the cam then how do you know what valve spring pressure you're going to run? If you don't know the springs then how are you making the decision on lifters? Comp lifters will last a long time on some lobes. Crane lifters can handle a little more load, etc. A typical 500 inch Mopar is going to be all finished by 6500 with 270 heads so you don't need the super high end stuff in the valve train.

If you're plugging up the engine with a Trick Flow intake then it isn't going to be a high rpm monster anyway. Do yourself a favor and call Dwayne at Porter Racing Heads. He can work with you to spec a cam and he'll tell you the matching springs and lifters to go with it.
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Thanks Andy. Hughes and Howard both have spec me a cam and springs and lifters. Like i said. I really did not have to even ask the question. There is good and there is cheap. So you will no i can have all my ducks in a roll and not know if i am going with Hughes or Howard Cams. You assumed a lot in your answer. All though your point is well taken. But i do have all the info you assumed i didn't have. But i ask a dumb question i should expect and answer like yours.
 
Rmoore said:
Thanks Andy. Hughes and Howard both have spec me a cam and springs and lifters. Like i said. I really did not have to even ask the question. There is good and there is cheap. So you will no i can have all my ducks in a roll and not know if i am going with Hughes or Howard Cams. You assumed a lot in your answer. All though your point is well taken. But i do have all the info you assumed i didn't have. But i ask a dumb question i should expect and answer like yours.
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Heres my rule. I never violate it because every time I do it bites me.

Never buy a lifter with a wheel diameter less that .800 and .810 is better.

The cheap lifters with the .750 wheel are just not good enough when the base circle gets bigger.

If you think about it, when the core gets bigger (stiffer core and bigger is always better) that means the base circle can be bigger. Chrysler uses bigger cores than GM. So the .750 wheel is ok for that junk. Most of those guys are using .904 bodied/.810 wheel lifters in their Chevy stuff anyway.

So let's say you have a SBC sized core and a SBM core (I'm most familiar with those numbers but the BBC/BBM is the same difference) and both cores have a .400 lobe. The cam with the bigger bearings and bigger core will have a bigger base circle. So when it's all fleshed out, even though the net lift at the lifter is .400 off the base circle, the Chrysler roller wheel had to travel farther to complete one lift cycle than the Chevy. That means the wheel on the Chrysler lifter had to spin faster (more RPM) to achieve the same lift as a Chevy.

What that all means is that .750 wheel is speed limited. So RPM and base circle size affect roller speed. You'll find the limit of the .750 wheel with a Chrysler long before you will a Chevy. They literally turn into a tuning fork and vibrate themselves to death.

That's why I always say spend the money for the bigger wheel.

Crane Pro Series are great lifters. BAM are very nice. Crower is making some really nice stuff and one of the guys at Crower is here on FABO. I forget his name.
Isky has some cool stuff too.
 
General questions get general answers.
Specific questions get specific answers.
The more we know the better the answer.
At least you KNOW Andy is a straight up goodfella!
 
rumblefish360 said:
General questions get general answers.
Specific questions get specific answers.
The more we know the better the answer.
At least you KNOW Andy is a straight up goodfella!
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Yes i do. Respect the heck out of him. And everyone else to. Like i said i should not have ask the question. I am a straight up guy also. But no one knows it all. I will still always ask dumb or not. And i am still not sure which cam Hughes or Howard. When i buy cam i will get spring, lifters
 
rumblefish360 said:
What did they suggest?
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At the local movie theater now. Info is at home. Howard is very high lift. Will have to keep an i on the spring. But will run really good. Hughes a more forgiving spring eater. But not build as much power. I will probably go with Hughes. Smaller cam. Easier on parts.
 
Rmoore said:
At the local movie theater now. Info is at home. Howard is very high lift. Will have to keep an i on the spring. But will run really good. Hughes a more forgiving spring eater. But not build as much power. I will probably go with Hughes. Smaller cam. Easier on parts.
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Lift isn't a very good indicator of valve spring life. Valve train mass, how aggressive the lobe is and RPM are the big factors.

I've had some relatively low lift lobes eat springs on the dyno. And those lobes broke other stuff too.
 
famous bob said:
Andy, do the trickflow and victor really hold a stroker down? I got my victor to flow about as much as my heads , but not sold on the small plenum .
????????????????????????
Click to expand...

The OP said he is running TF 270 heads which are max wedge port. But he said he is using a Trick Flow intake which is standard port size. So he is killing a bunch of power with the intake. Since he is willing to kill the power with the intake then I couldn't figure out why he wanted to pay a bunch of money for lifters.

The TF and Victor intake both work okay with the 240 heads but neither of them work very well with the 270 heads. For the 270 heads you have to step up to the Super Victor or an Indy intake.

We just ran a pump gas 505 on the dyno last week with 270 heads, a ported Indy intake and a Holley Sniper. This is a pump gas street driver going in RoadRunner. It made a little over 700 hp at 6200 rpm with a Comp Cams street roller camshaft and Comp lifters. We use the AMC lifter since it is pressure fed. Those are fairly inexpensive lifters but they work just fine in this application.
 
AndyF said:
The OP said he is running TF 270 heads which are max wedge port. But he said he is using a Trick Flow intake which is standard port size. So he is killing a bunch of power with the intake. Since he is willing to kill the power with the intake then I couldn't figure out why he wanted to pay a bunch of money for lifters.

The TF and Victor intake both work okay with the 240 heads but neither of them work very well with the 270 heads. For the 270 heads you have to step up to the Super Victor or an Indy intake.

We just ran a pump gas 505 on the dyno last week with 270 heads, a ported Indy intake and a Holley Sniper. This is a pump gas street driver going in RoadRunner. It made a little over 700 hp at 6200 rpm with a Comp Cams street roller camshaft and Comp lifters. We use the AMC lifter since it is pressure fed. Those are fairly inexpensive lifters but they work just fine in this application.
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Thank you Andy. For the advice given. The reason i went with the trick flow intake cause trick flow gave great reviews. So your saying i would be much better suited with the Indy Intake?? Sir i totally respect everything you tell me. I am definitely not a know it all. And i did just order your book off Amazon. My question now is. If i buy the indy intake. Will i have to send it to Wilson or someone to port the intake to get it to work. Or can i just clean it up.
 
yellow rose said:
Lift isn't a very good indicator of valve spring life. Valve train mass, how aggressive the lobe is and RPM are the big factors.

I've had some relatively low lift lobes eat springs on the dyno. And those lobes broke other stuff too.
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Yes sir understand that. .800 lift will be spring eating dude. But i don't think i need that much lift anyway.
 
Rmoore said:
Thank you Andy. For the advice given. The reason i went with the trick flow intake cause trick flow gave great reviews. So your saying i would be much better suited with the Indy Intake?? Sir i totally respect everything you tell me. I am definitely not a know it all. And i did just order your book off Amazon. My question now is. If i buy the indy intake. Will i have to send it to Wilson or someone to port the intake to get it to work. Or can i just clean it up.
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The Trick Flow intake is a great intake for standard port heads. It is probably the very best intake available for standard port heads. You have MW port heads if you have the 270 heads. Have you looked at your parts? Put a MW intake gasket on your 270 heads and then put it on your intake. You'll see that the gasket opening is much larger than the opening in your intake manifold. I don't really know much about what you are trying to do but on a serious 270 head engine (700+ hp) the Trick Flow intake would kill at least 50 hp if not more. I don't know if that matters to you or not since I don't know what you're trying to do but it just doesn't make sense to me that you're worried about high dollar roller lifters when you have a TF intake on 270 heads.

Like I said above, we just finished a 505 with TF270 heads. It has a Comp street roller cam with Comp lifters and it made 700 hp on pump gas. If I put a Trick Flow intake on that engine and then spent another $1000 on Isky lifters the engine would make less power. If a Comp street roller cam can make 700 hp then why beat up the valve train with something more aggressive? If the Comp lifters work just fine on a Comp street roller lobe then why pay double for something else? Match the lifter to the lobe and the spring. That is all you need to do.

You've made a big investment with the 270 heads. For your engine to be successful you need to make sure that the cam, carb, intake, and headers all match the 270 heads. When you build an engine with matching parts then it really works. If the parts don't match then it won't work very well.
 
AndyF said:
The Trick Flow intake is a great intake for standard port heads. It is probably the very best intake available for standard port heads. You have MW port heads if you have the 270 heads. Have you looked at your parts? Put a MW intake gasket on your 270 heads and then put it on your intake. You'll see that the gasket opening is much larger than the opening in your intake manifold. I don't really know much about what you are trying to do but on a serious 270 head engine (700+ hp) the Trick Flow intake would kill at least 50 hp if not more. I don't know if that matters to you or not since I don't know what you're trying to do but it just doesn't make sense to me that you're worried about high dollar roller lifters when you have a TF intake on 270 heads.

Like I said above, we just finished a 505 with TF270 heads. It has a Comp street roller cam with Comp lifters and it made 700 hp on pump gas. If I put a Trick Flow intake on that engine and then spent another $1000 on Isky lifters the engine would make less power. If a Comp street roller cam can make 700 hp then why beat up the valve train with something more aggressive? If the Comp lifters work just fine on a Comp street roller lobe then why pay double for something else? Match the lifter to the lobe and the spring. That is all you need to do.

You've made a big investment with the 270 heads. For your engine to be successful you need to make sure that the cam, carb, intake, and headers all match the 270 heads. When you build an engine with matching parts then it really works. If the parts don't match then it won't work very well.
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Thank you Sir!! Very good advice
 
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