When I was in college I had a small block Ford with solid lifters. Loved the sound but I had to spend a lot of time adjusting the valves, IIRC.
Two of my cars have solid flat tappets , one has a solid roller . Oops...I forgot my 29 has a 30 30 in it so that makes three with flat tappets.
I run em in my 396. Sort of like my wife, chatters a bit and needs routine maintenance but well worth the hassle.
yes -factory OT Ford 390 - had '54 Ford pu all stock except for 283 Corvette solid lifter motor and pair of loud glass packs - lots of fun - pull up to stop sign & would enjoy watching people looking around for the Vette
I adjust mine once a year or rather check once a year on my 514 BBF and it's very rarely they ever need anything done. Pretty much maintenance free.
Hydraulics of today is sending me there. I'd rather hear 16 little tinkles in rhythm than 1 clacker every so often.
Nope 1. 327 with hydraulic lifters. 2. 350 with Rhoads lifters. 3. 427 small block with hydraulic roller lifters.
MG has solid roller lifters, my 377" SBC has an Isky solid flat tappet Z-50. I ran one in my 400" willys and 62 Corvette Isky Z-30 in each. Corvette is still running, sold it in 86 saw it last year same motor. Pat
I used to drive a car with solid lifters. '48 Plymouth. '33 Packard,'39 Ford, '47 Chevy. Pretty much everybody was driving with solids then. More recently my solid lifter driving has been limited to around 5 miles at a time.
Nothing with solids now. Only solids I ever had were 235's and a 292. Put many a mile on both and only adjusted/checked adjustment when I was bored.
I had a slant 6 and found out after I sold it that it came from the factory with solid lifters. So much for routine maintenance.
Solid lifters in a sbc 383 stroker with poly locks. I checkem 2 times a year and very seldem have to adjust any thing. When I do have one out of adjustment I can tell the difference in performance. Actually very low maintanice and worth the trouble......
had solid lifters in a 261 Chevy six many moons ago. had a real live 1970 Z/28 with solids... boy did that motor sound great! and currently have a 1961 slanted six with solids. that motor sounds like nothing.
Yep. I found once all the bent pushrods and worn rockers etc etc got replaced, set the lash accurately, they are actually pretty quiet. Solids will make noise but if it's clattering away loudly something ain't right.
My valves are set at .019 (hot) per cam specs, but seems too chatty to me. Probably going to tighten down to .016. Does take a while to get them all set too. Only got 1100 miles on the motor so giving it a bit more miles to re adjust.
These work slick, it doesn't take hardly any rocker arm face wear to interfere with accurate lash setting when using a flat feeler gauge. If everything is new it's not a problem using a feeler gauge. I thought I had 'em set at .019 but they were quite a bit wider than that after checking with this. Getting the lash consistent across all cylinders, smooths everything out too. A vacuum gauge is useful when setting the lash. Let's say your motor always pulls 19", if the lash is too tight the valves start hanging open and the gauge will drop off quite a bit, and valves need to hang around on the valve seat for a little while to cool off, it may burn a valve. Too loose, and everything in the valve train gets completely hammered.
I guess the flathead guys don't need to reply to this, because they all had 'em. Except Some Cadillac flatheads. And some Hudsons. And the big Lincoln flathead.
Danny, I run solids in everything I build. Started doing that probably 15 years ago. And A few of the ones I’ve done were my daily drivers for years. Like my old 52 Chevy truck. Just shy of 60k miles and a solid comp cam since day one. Check and maybe adjust if needed once a year and it was honestly all I ever had to do. Same deal with my 32 and 57. Both comp solids. Anyway, if I’m building it it’s got a solid in it. I actually like the mechanical sound of em too. Lol Tony
My SBC powered '31 "A" Hiboy has solid lifters, as does my OT Duramax Diesel p'up. The Comp cam lifters in SBC are the ones with the .012" hole in the lifter face to bleed oil out onto the face of the lifter for good lubrication between cam lobe and lifter face. This feature is not available in hydraulic lifters. The engine has aluminum heads and I have found that if you are adjusting valves on a cold engine, instead of allowing for valve train expansion tightening up valve lash as it does on cast iron heads, and requiring you to set valves loose to make them correct at hot engine temps, you actually need to set the lash about .004-0.005" tight and the greater expansion of the aluminum heads is greater than the expansion of the valve train, thus increasing the valve lash. Also have roller rockers from Comp cams made of Moly steel, and a once a year valve train adjustment seems to keep things in correct lash. Had forgotten about the P&G valve lash checker and may look into getting one.
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