Are there any benifits to running solid roller lifters or is there any down side.

 

There are a lot of benefits performance wise. In regards to maintenance there's setting lash and a slightly increased valvetrain noise. The price is also much higher with adjustable rockers, solid lifters, and larger springs.

This is a good thread that speaks of many of the performance benefits.
https://ls1tech.com/forums/generatio...lsk-lobes.html

I plan on running a solid roller setup in my Formula. I'm working on getting everything together now.

 

Just in case someone that doesnt know anything about a solid setup reads this:

You do not want to run a solid lifter on a hydraulic cam.

 

I like my solid setup

 

In addition to the increased maintenance, noise, and cost, as already stated, there is the fact that to truly take advantage of them, the rest of the engine, such as the short block, need to be taken into consideration as far as the matching of components. Even so, wear increases as RPM goes up, no matter how well the engine is built, or what parts are used. For the first increase in RPM, the cost is more reasonable, but rapidly becomes more expensive for increasingly small gains, for the parts needed. Even then, with a relatively moderate increase in RPM, you will likely not have the same rate of wear as stock.

 

Yeah, that's definetly a good point considering the original post doesn't mention a cam.

 

The other thing that might come as a suprise to some is the solid lifters wear out 10-12 times faster. In a street cruiser I did a little testing with that did not have overdrive the solid roller lifters would only run around 5000 miles before failure. You can extend that a good amount as the cost of the lifter increases, but you will never get as much life as the hyd lifter.

Kurt

 

^ By cost so you factor in diameter or are all of these drop ins? What're you seeing out of OEM sized jesels?

 

The oem Jesel has a much bigger axle/bearing package that should be much better, but still won't come close to the life of the hyd lifter. I just failed my truck engine with a boosted engine for 107,000 miles, it killed an ex wheel on cylinder 6 finally but a mechanical lifter would probably lasted less than 15,000 miles even with the best parts. The .904 lifters that Comp and Morel build will last longer than .842 stuff as the axle and bearing package is larger and adds more durability, but the mechanical cams valve action is more aggressive with higher spring loads so they just won't last as long as the hyd stuff.

Kurt

 

Kurt,

Thanks for that insight into this. It kind of makes me second guess my plans of going solid. How can you really inspect for lifter wear other than pulling the heads? Something with the lash and a dial indicator perhaps? I'd like to stay on top of things considering I've spent over three years now working on the damn thing.

 

^^^what he said!

 

After a lengthy discussion with Tony Mamo about building my 406 he talked me into a solid roller.

He said like anything else technology has improved greatly with solid rollers and do not require the up keep that was previously required.

 

^ I agree and a lot of what I have read has lead me into making the same decision. I already had all of the parts and I figured why not. I just plan on putting a lot of miles on it and Kurt's comment of lifter wear kind of has me concerned.