Solid or Hydraulic for the Street????

xxx

 

If you don't want to be setting the valves now and then go with the hydraulics.

 

Hydraulic Roller, Hydraulic, Solid Roller, then Solid Mech. for street driven cars.

 

solid cams and lifters wear. period. can you retrofit a roller cam setup?

 

Hydraulic cam for a street /strip car IMO.Hyd lifters have come along way and you should have no problem getting sum revs out of that 283 with a hydraulic if you have good springs .Im turning 6300 in the lights with no floating in my Dodge and its a flat tappet hydraulic setup with cheap lifters to the tune of low 11.40's.I dont see any reason to run a solid for the appllication you described ...

 

I've never had a problem with hydrualics so I'm a fan of them.

As Ron Popeil would say, "set it and forget it!"

 

From the sounds of what you're planning with the car I think you'd be happier with hydraulics. I have solid lifters in one of my cars and check them about once a month & before every trip to the track. Unless you need every last drop of HP I'd skip the solids.

 

you said it yourself, you are less than mechanical, will you be able to adjust regularly, my race cars have to run hydraulic and rev them all the way to 7600, no problem, and no adjusments......your engine guy isnt wrong, just not gonna be there to adjust the valves for you......personally, hydraulic roller is the way to go, and will kick the crap out of a similar solid cam any day of the week and twice on sunday....

 

Solids sound the best to my ears but need adjustment, if it's going to be a driver like you said and don't want adjust valves..... hydraulic all the way.

 

Back in my youth I ran solids in a 283 .125 over (301) the little motor screamed ! The thrill of setting the valvetrain soon got old.

 

solid = fun

 

X2 If I were building from scratch I'd go hydraulic roller every time without question. Once you go roller cam you'll wonder why you even considered any of that flat tappetty nonsense.

 

Gospel.

 

Opinions are like belly buttons.

You will probably be happier with a solid lifter cam for your planned use.
Properly installed and set up they should not require constant checking UNLESS
you are floating the valves.
I have put 30-30 cams in several vintage circle track 350 Chev engines and they get turned
7500 to 7800 twice a lap...Those guys adjust the valves once a year in the winter.(maybe)

On the other side, there have been enormous gains in hydraulic cam technology in recent years. If you went with either a hydraulic flat or a hydraulic roller you would of course get at least equal performance to the solid lifter cam with similar specs.

"Been in the cam business 58 years"

 

With todays locking mechanisms,valve adjust isn't what it used to be. You haven't really said how much you plan on daily driving this car,but if it is somewhat casual I would go solid.You would need to adjust your valves as often as you would want to check everything else!! I run a solid crane in a 13 to 1 468 chev. It is .649/.669 268I 276E solid. I race the car every other weekend,and drive to the occasional car show,and to work every now and again. I adjust them every oil change!!! That is with locks only..
As said above.... solid=fun!!

 

What he said.....! Solids sound great and perform better. With a cheap set of roller rockers and poly locks, maintenance is cut to nearly nothing. We turned our dirt car 8800 every lap last year and never found one backed off. Nothings different on the street except it will never see that kind of abuse. I have run solids on the street for 25 years with no problems.

A hydraulic roller in a 283 is a BAD recipe. 3" stroke and a cam that quits pulling at 5500 won't work. Those cams are designed for alot more stroke.

 

Hydraulic roller would be the best choice. You don't have to set it like a solid but you can get more agressive than the solid cam.

 

In any case, make sure you have screw-in rocker studs instead of pressed in.

In reply to your question directly above this post, solid lifters are generally lighter than hydraulics, so the valvetrain weight is less. Using the same valve springs, a solid lifter setup will rev higher before valves start to float.

 

I run either on the street. It doesn't make any difference to me one way or the other.

But I normally run flat tappet cams and yes in that situation you are going to have to run the valves on a mechanical (solid) cam. When your machinist said modern cams he was probably talking about a roller cam. If you don't go way radical with a solid roller cam you shouldn't have to adjust as often as with a mechanical flat tappet cam, but you are going to have to adjust occaisionally.

They say that a hydraulic cam is a set it and forget it but if you want to keep it to the optimum you need to adjust them occaisionally as well.

The least amount of maintenence is going to be with a hydraulic cam. I'm pretty old so I am going to say that the most performance is going to be with a mechanical cam but that's not absolutely true unless you are winging it up into the oh wow range.

 

I went with an 097 Solid lifter cam for my 265/283. Nothing beats that sounds and from everyone that I know who has one (solid lifter cam) you don't adjust them as much as people tend to think. It becomes less frequent then changing your oil and I even heard one guy say he hasn't touched his in years.

I'm all new to this so I took their word but I know I love the sound and that cam seemed perfect for my build so I went with it.

 

Specs are 230'@.050 287' advertised .393 in X .399 ex lift 112' separation lash is .012 & .018. Said it'll rev past 6k. But like I said, I resorted people that know more then I do to help me choose my parts. I told them what I was looking for and they sorted things out for me since it's my first engine that I am doing.

 

Built four different small blocks for the first rod. Now I'd only choose a juice cam, no more clacking sounds.

 

Isn't that for the 30-30 cam?

Here's another listing I found on the 097. It the SOLID, The Lunati version of the famous "Duntov" cam. 1800-6200 287°

287° 228°
230° .394"
.400" .263"
.267" 110° Sep
106° Int C/L 08°BTC 40°ABC /
49°BBC 01°ATC 20109
.012"
.018

 

097 is the cam they put in Corvettes from 57-63 and the 30-30 was from 64-69 that was used in 365 horse vettes.

 

Solid!

 

I was happy with a solid on my 289, I adjusted them about every 1000 miles at 1st. Then at every oil change. They often didn't need adjustment. After the 1st few times, it takes less than 20 minutes to do the adjustment. There is a way to do it with only rotating the engine to 3 positions.

I liked being able to get .499" lift with only 224 degrees at .050, you can't have that much lift with that little duration unless you have solid, or roller. Roller conversion was about $500 more, and I'm a cheap bastard.

The cam ate my stock rockers quickly, but life was better with roller rockers.

 

So let's muddy the waters.

You can rev the soild cam more. That means you better be sure the bottom end can turn 5600+ or what ever.

Your rear axle ratio and tire size will also have a bearing on your trap speed. So will the engine reach it's full potential in the 1/4? Or will it be maxed out at 1/2 track?

Will the heads you have flow the air that the cam could feed the cylinder?

What about the torque curve? If you will spend most of the time on the street, then you don't need a cam that starts making power at 1800 RPM if your cruising speed is 2200. You are not gaining anything, in fact the engine may lug.

So when you find the engine combo you want, plug it in and see what your RPM's will be at a given speed. Where the torque curve is for various RPM's also. I feel that building an engine is more than just making power. It has a lot to do with managing the power as well.

 

That makes sense 57 HEAP. When I chose my engine setup I pretty much tried to create part for part a '57 Corvette Engine from punching it out .125 to a final CI of 283 to Replacing the stock heads with '57 units that have been ported and polished. I figured that a Vette would have had great road manners and would still deliver the power that I wanted. Hope that thought process work out as I still have yet to fire my engine!

 

Here is a link to another cam question on the board: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=563684

 

Todays oils prefer rollers over solid/solid hyd due to the removal of zinc and unless you plan to flogg a bunch of cams for best performance just go with a modern hyd. roller,no adjustment, no special additives, and dial in your ET for the drags. It is what it is.