Solid Roller Cam Worth it??
 

Solid Roller vs. Hydraulic Roller- Is a solid roller worth the maintenance? Do the Solid rollers perform a lot better? Is the only down side setting the valve lash every once and a while?

todays hyd roller cams can make good power,imo a solid roller is just not needed for 99% of performance boats.

Love my solid! The upper rpms she is a monster!! :-) With T&D shaft rockers my lash has not moved in 30 hours and from what I hear that is the normal :-) :-)!!

same here unless youre shooting for insane power I see no need for it either

I bought a old supercat engine and it has a 55mm solid roller setup. The cam is useless to me as it's very radical but I'm keeping the mechanical roller setup.

A nice side benefit to the mechanical roller is that if you get one valve with a wacky lash number, you know something is amiss and you better check things out.

Very true I am 12 PSI boost on a 600" motor spinning some RPM. I was looking for every HP I could get so a solid was a easy choice.

this is a little like asking if I should buy a Ferrari or a Hyundai. both will get you there but one does it a bit differently than the other. you need to address what you are trying to do before you decide how to do it.

Mechanical roller = maintenance
Hydraulic roller = jump in and go

Yep. Same here and I like knowing if the lash changes slightly either way one can find and fix issue before it is too late.

I should add that what makes the solid work is the T&D shaft rockers set up properly for your heads. Stud girdles just don't work on my engines anyway; not even sbc, ran solid anyway due to 7600 shift point in road racing engine. Had to reset every day if run hard.

What maintenance is there with mechanicals? Correct me if I'm wrong, but you should never be gaining lash unless there is a problem. They use the same poly nuts, rocker studs, rocker arms and pushrod guide plates. Everyone says that you need to check them every year. Every time that I checked mine they never moved. I switched from solid cams last year that were lashed at 0.026" hot to hydraulic roller cams that I am running solid lifters on that are lashed to 0.007" and they are silent. If I here any little different noise in my the valve train there usually is something wrong. This can be masked for a while with hydraulic lifters.

I don't run solids on hydraulic cams to be different or for the little extra hp gain, it's because I'm cheap. I had just spent a lot of $$$ on Isky Red Zone solid lifters and I didn't want to buy 2 new sets of HR lifters for more $$$. So I compromised and sent my Isky's out to get rebuilt for $20/lifter.

I don't know the OP's build specs and agree that solids are really not necessary for most, but around 6000RPM's I would still go with solids.

I had a solid roller in a sick 12.5 to 1 SBF in my first boat ( Glastron CVX-18 ) I used to spin it to 7000 RPM and only had to adjust the valve train once a year and it was never off much.

My opinion is this. With today's hydraulic lifters and cams a solid roller is not needed in an every day beat around performance boat. I don't remember the numbers exactly but the morel hydraulic lifter starts falling off at I believe 1350hp and 6500 rpm on a blower motor on the exhaust side due to the cylinder pressure. Naturally Aspirated would be a different story but who wants to spend 100k to build that kind of motor. For your average Joe blow I think a solid roller is a bad idea. The lash as said doesn't need to be adjusted as stated but needs to be monitored. When they start going out of adjustment it's time for some lifters or atleast a very thorough inspection to see what's going on. Most guys don't know where you put oil in a motor let alone how to adjust valves. I have a .721 .721 283 290@ .050 hydraulic roller in my motor and I really can't see that you would ever need anything more than that in a boat...

Paul,
Holy Cow I thought mine was huge at .693 .695 lift. Was a solid but going to a hydraulic because I want more reliable seat time. And pulling the Stellings off every time and new exhaust gaskets sucks just the check valve lash. I have full stud girdles and Regular Tall BBC valve covers so Headers have to be removed. Granted it sounds nasty as hell but the cam power ran out close to 7k. My bucket of resin is HEAVY. So why try to even think about keeping up! haha I'll get my new Cam Grind and Lifters From Bob. Still saving up $ to make just one phone call.

Like you I thought my Kiekhaefer motor had a big solid cam .... Lift .680/.708

Solid rollers will always let you know where you stand with your valve train. If you regularly check, and document your lash settings, failure is very rare. If you use a pressure fed, bushed lifter, it's almost impossible, unless you fail to keep tabs on it for extended hours of running.
Documenting your adjustments will show if there is a pattern of wear. A rocker that is loose .003" may not seem like much, but if it happens 3 times and you don't keep track, you are not getting what the engine is telling you. A .010" change all at once would certainly get your attention and warrant looking into.

Hydraulic rollers, albeit that run lower spring pressures, can still have roller failure. The problem is, because they continually adjust up the lash if something is wearing out, you may ever know until there is a failure. Sometimes the lower spring pressures can actually cause more harmonic issues and valve float, especially with boosted applications.

Just because you're running a hyd. roller, doesn't mean you never check them again. You should still, seasonally, back them off the same amount they are preloaded and make sure they are the same as when installed. If you put them in at 1/2 turn of preload and they go loose after backing one off at 1/8 turn upon checking them, you may have a problem.

Everything has it's pros and cons, but maintenance and documentation can mitigate failures and detect them before they are catastrophic. I continually pound this into my customers brains, and any type of failure is very rare.

Solid roller cams have faster ramp rates , thus they build more cylinder pressure for more low end and mid range torque . Large hydraulic rollers tend to bleed off lots of cylinder pressure due to their slow opening rates , which are designed this way to prevent the hydraulic lifter from collapsing .All depends on how fast you want to accelerate and how fast you want to go . Most older hulls have tons of drag , and you need lots of torque to move them . this is where the solid roller shines in midrange and top end power . Solid roller cams also make the same power with about 6-8 degrees of less duration .If you are running a newer stepped hull, there is much less drag and the hydraulic roller cam is the better choice .
All depends on how fast you want to accelerate and how fast you want to go, and how savvy you are when it comes to adjusting and checking the valve lash . Comp cams makes a good line of "street solid roller" cams which are easy on valve train components and make tons of power . For the ultimate performance we use them in our race boats .

Yup solid cam and t&d shaft rockers for sure one of the best go fast mod I did to my blown BBC :-) :-) :-)!!

When are we going to see that 140 plus video ?

pros and cons to both. I do believe the modern hydraulic rollers have somewhat narrowed the gap between hyd and solid, when it comes to power.

What I feel is more important, whether you choose either cam style, is setup of the valvetrain.

Lifters. You want a stout lifter. If going hydraulic, you want to make sure you have a lifter capable of the spring loads and rpm it will be subjected to.

Pushrods. One area where bigger is better. Go with the thickest and largest diameter you can fit in there. Its been proven that the old .080 wall 3/8 industry standard pushrod , will deflect a bunch in a higher HP higher RPM build, especially boosted. If you wanna save weight, do it on the valve side

Rockers. Steel Shaft rockers are nice, but not in everyones budget. Stay away from the cheapo aluminum rockers. I like the crane golds, scorpion marine series, or crower stainless if you can swing a few extra bucks. They are nice .

Rocker studs, poly locks, etc. Again, no skimping here. Be aware not all BBC poly locks are the same. Some rockers call for .550 locks, some .600.

Valvesprings. Here is an area I think most guys overlook. They simply look at the spring brand, and advertised seat pressure. Measuring installed height is crucial, and picking a spring that not only has the proper pressures you want, but also distance to coil bind. Having a spring that is setup too far from coil bind with the cam/rocker combo you are using, can lead to valve spring surge, and greatly reduce spring life from the extreme heat they will generate during surge. No point in buying 400 dollar a set springs, and having them be setup wrong. Pointless.

Pushrod geometry. Often overlooked. Was doing it the old fashioned way when I assembled my engines a few years back. This past winter, I redidthem using the mid lift method. My old way I was losing .035 of lift at the valve

I run the merc soild rollers that they use in 1075 and 900 motors. jesel shaft mount rockers isky tool room steel springs hipo lifters. check values every 50 hours.235 hr on motors no problems so far!

Mild Thunder
When I put my engines together many years ago I put a dial indicator on the valve and adjusted the pushrod length for max valve lift. Then bought that length pushrods. Is this what you call mid lift method?

FDo you know of any engines that are running these numbers? I don't believe that the hydraulics will support 1350... I'd like know if some are out there

The mid lift method essentially has you set the cam for half of lobe lift, measure valve lift to half of total lift, and set your pushrod length so your trunion is at exactly 90 degrees to the valve at this point. Bob sent me a picture when I was talking to him about it that helped me greatly with visualizing it.

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Not necessarily.

What I used to look for was simply a pattern on the stem that was centered, and somewhat narrow. But sometimes simply being centered is not going to give the narrowest sweep, and can result in a loss of movement of the valve due to wasted motion.

I initially had read about that method a few years ago. I wrote it off as technical mumbo jumbo, simply because I couldn't wrap my head around all the geometry, drawings, and so on. But it's actually very simple, and makes quick work of measuring for the proper pushrod lengths. Bob Madera explained it in depth to me, and it simplified it and helped me understand all of it. You can really see the differences in rocker geometry from brand to brand when doing it that way. The comp cams rockers we tried were the worst from that aspect. Cranes were better. Crower makes back set rockers which is nice if you wanna fine tune things.

FWIW I have 2 seasons on my solid rollers (T&D) and lash is still right where I set them.

Anyone having a problem with valve guides on 1075?

Why you ask?
Only reason should be a lot of time on them.
Or the Needle bearing in the tip of the rockers are not rolling anymore.

BB I couldn't help but notice post 12??? Sup

no,close to 400hrs

2 years ago we didn't have a bucket full of lifters that never pumped up.

How often change you oil?

2x a season,end of season and then mid.repeat every year.there in a 46 ol,so they get run hard,,maybe not as hard as offshore,,but hard.:D

1075sci Merc rite?

What kind of oil?

yes
mobil1 20/50 twin v