Roller CAM -FE

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by PANAVIA

I wanted to hear experiences with *roller cam* converted FE's -- who have you used, was it worth it , what did you like?

Steve, I don't think there are any real issues with hydraulic roller camshafts in an FE. Now solid rollers may be a different story. I know back five or so years ago there were durability issues with solid roller cam setups in an FE -- they just weren't lasting very long (the lifters, that is). Most fellas were only seeing a few thousand miles as I recall. Obviously hydraulic lifters see plenty of oil, and there were threads discussing whether it was smart to block off the galleys (like you traditionally do with a solid cam) with solid roller lifters. Some said leaving them open was smarter (some say that though on just regular old solid flat tappets as well). I kind of remember, although I may be imagining it, that there have been improvements in the solid roller lifters over the last five years -- so if you see a thread from 2002 over in the FE forum complaining that their solid roller lifters only lasted three thousand miles you might want to read something more recent.

EDIT -- I think the distributor gear problems have been overcome. I haven't heard any problems on that in a while, but maybe people are just in the habit of changing them out after so many miles? Not using an iron gear applies to both hydro and solids -- but, you know, pulling the distributor to press on a new gear is not a big deal (especially if you just take the new gear and distributor to a machine shop and tell them to do it). Anyway, those were the two issues that I remember: 1) Durability of the lifters; and 2) Durability of the distributor gear.

[decooney]

Hey Steve,
You might check with Tom Lucas at FE Specialities, just up the road here in Sac. He's done several conversions for original FE blocks, hydraulic/solid roller setups. Many coversations over many years about this with him...

I was one of his diehard (solid lifter flat tappet FE) customers who never converted, all is still going well, but every time I see him he ribs me a bit about not catching up with modern technology and benefits. Tom's dialed into various research and testing groups and has helped a few friends on these kinds of decisions.

On the performance side of the equation, most folks here would not even believe what they just got from the dyno this week on his latest normally aspirated FE build with some recent developments - numbers I've not seen before from an FE. If I wrote it here, not too many would believe it - so I won't. Maybe Tom will come along later and post something. He is at 916-339-0427