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Which roller rocker to go with?

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Old 08-21-2012, 09:09 AM
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Default Which roller rocker to go with?

At the moment I've got my heads off replacing valves from where the tops of them have been wearing. I'm running stock rockers with the trunion upgrade and a MS4. I'm thinking my problem came from wrong pushrod length but while I've got it apart I want to make sure I've done everything to prevent anymore pre mature wear so I'm going to a roller rocker. I've read alot about the yella terras breaking lately and I don't want to spend 1500 on jesels. Whats my best option for a quality roller? If a rocker were to break does anything catastrophic happen? Also my guides were all in excellent shape.
Old 08-21-2012, 09:27 AM
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We run the stock rocker with the comp trunion upgrade on probably 95% of the builds we do. With the valvetrain setup correctly, there shouldn't be any abnormal wear.
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Old 08-21-2012, 09:52 AM
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There is a reason Jesel's are $1500....

Ive had the comp/T&D systems and theyre OK.

I would keep stock rockers over doing the yella terras though
Old 08-21-2012, 11:34 AM
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Yea roller rockers are just another variable that personally I wouldn't want to deal with. My buddy ordered some Harland sharps and they wouldn't even clear 241 heads on his vette. So he ordered JEGS brand and now there is tons of valvetrain noise. I told him the small amount of tai. Wasn't worth the trouble and just do a cam swap, but oh well it wasnt my car...
Old 08-21-2012, 12:05 PM
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Originally Posted by Jake@Texas-Speed
We run the stock rocker with the comp trunion upgrade on probably 95% of the builds we do. With the valvetrain setup correctly, there shouldn't be any abnormal wear.
Sound advice right there^^
Old 08-21-2012, 12:47 PM
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If upgrading from stock rockers I would only look at the jesels
Old 08-21-2012, 01:27 PM
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i have ran sereral sets of harland sharp rockers on lsx engines and have great luck with them i will never run another set of stock rockers with a trunion upgrade myself personally
Old 08-21-2012, 02:18 PM
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Originally Posted by dodson55
i will never run another set of stock rockers with a trunion upgrade myself personally
reason(s)?
Old 08-21-2012, 03:28 PM
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Agree with Jake, no reason to deviate from the GM stuff. The rockers themselves are quality pieces, but a trunion upgrade might be worth a few bucks if you want added security.
Old 08-21-2012, 04:24 PM
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Originally Posted by dodson55
i have ran sereral sets of harland sharp rockers on lsx engines and have great luck with them i will never run another set of stock rockers with a trunion upgrade myself personally
Then you have been very fortunate I can't count the number of times we have run into issues with the Harland Sharp rockers over the years, so we simply prefer if people have to upgrade to something other than the factory ones with the trunion upgrade they consider spending the extra cash on the Jesel or T&D setups. We have had pretty good success with the Yella Terras as well, but the factory rockers with a trunion upgrade will take care of a large majority of builds going on out there.
Old 08-21-2012, 05:09 PM
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I will admit, a few years ago I ran across a "great deal" on eBay and picked up a set of full roller rockers for $199 brand new...they looked like real nice peices, also bought tall valve covers to fit over them...the car ran great with them for about 10 miles, then one of the rocker bolts snapped.....replaced it abd after a day or so one of the rocker stands snapped.....and this was with a little .595 lift cam.

In the end I threw those $199 rockers in the metal scrap bin with less than 100 miles on them....luckily nothing ended up going on down into the motor and destroying anything else, so I had a quick $199 dollar lesson on putting cheap parts in a great motor.
Old 08-21-2012, 05:30 PM
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Originally Posted by vmapper
reason(s)?
the reason i quit running stock with trunion upgrade is the trunion wear out i have pulled several sets off of motors with 8-10k on the rockers and the bearing have slack in them you press the bearing out and they fall apart and the trunion will have about a .010 grove in it in my opinion i will never use a set of stock rockers on anything but a stock engine the only advantage to the trunion upgrade is that when the bearings fail they dont spit needles everywhere, i have put three set of harlands on ls engines and have yet to have one fail the first set has been used since 05 has been on 4 different motors and are still going strong i bet they have over 100k on them
Old 08-21-2012, 06:29 PM
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Yella Terra Ultralite work well and are worth a couple of HP due to the decreased friction and don't weigh much more than the GM stockers.

Either one works well, though. Anything beyond that is overkill.
Old 08-21-2012, 09:19 PM
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Hey Dodson what heads where you running with the harlands? I'm just wondering bc the rear of the rockers wouldnt clear the 241 heads...all it needed was a tiny bit of dremel but the owner didn't wanna pull the heads and I wasn't doing it with the heads on that's for sure...
Old 08-22-2012, 09:14 AM
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i have ran them on the perimeter bolt heads the 241 casings 862 castings 243 castings and a set of prc 2.5 ls6 heads the only ones i had clearance problems was the perimeter bolt heads and one of my prc heads all the others cleared fine i have clearanced them in the car but alot of care was taken to tape up the heads very well and i had a die grinder in one hand and a shop vac in the other lol
Old 08-22-2012, 09:46 AM
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Originally Posted by Jake@Texas-Speed
We run the stock rocker with the comp trunion upgrade on probably 95% of the builds we do. With the valvetrain setup correctly, there shouldn't be any abnormal wear.
what about with bronze valve guides?
Old 08-24-2012, 01:00 PM
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I have used many sets of the Yella Terra with no issues. There was a batch of Yella Terra Ultralites that had some issues, but that was fixed and they also improved the design of the rockar at that time. What a lot of people don't understand is that the Ultralites are perfectly safe and the best choice for a rocker arm up to certain parameters of camshafts and spring pressures. If you are going to exceed these limits Yella Terra makes the Platinum series rockers to handle the high spring pressures and more agressive ramp rates. It is a twin shaft design with wide body arms and oversized trunnions to take the abuse. You just have to make sure that you are using the right rocker arm for your set up. Hope this helps.
Old 08-27-2012, 05:24 PM
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Originally Posted by RezinTexas
what about with bronze valve guides?
Keep in mind we offer & stock PRC castings in both bronze & PM guides.
If you want PM guide cylinder heads we have the castings in stock & ready to roll!!

That being said the bronze guides we run are a far cry from the bronze guides a lot of cylinder head companies offer. We use CV Products bronze guides that cost over twice what a typical bronze valve guide sell for. The difference in quality of machining & quality of material made it an investment that we felt would benefit our customers.

Here's a link to CV Products guides so you can read about them. Our guides are of course a custom length & design so they're not available on their site, but it atleast shows you what we offer.

http://www.cvproducts.com/Products/E...Valve%20Guide/

Bottom line is we could have saved $5 per guide ($80 a pair) running a cheaper guide, but we wanted to offer the best components possible.
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Last edited by Sales3@Texas-Speed; 08-27-2012 at 05:46 PM.
Old 08-27-2012, 06:11 PM
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Haven't heard of any problems with stock rockers with truniun upgrade.
And there's some motors making serious horsepower with that setup.
If you think you need something better. Buy a set of jesel's.
My guess is you don't need them!
Old 08-27-2012, 07:43 PM
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RezinTexas,
I don't believe Jake understood your question, so I will answer it. The rocker with the trunion upgrade will still side load and wear the bronze guides. The trunion has been changed, but no roller tip was added to the rocker. An aftermarket roller rocker should be used with bronze guides to avoid side loading. I prefer the Yella Terra rockers, they have the largest trunion and smallest nose wheel in the industry.


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