I'm kicking around the idea of converting my stroker motor over to a solid roller setup over the winter. I was curious who were the best shops for such a task. I'm just planning on pulling my whole motor and shipping it out to be done. Thanks for any input good or bad on shops.

 

I've read Futural and Thunder Racing do a good job on solid roller setups.

 

East side performance is also a good choice.

 

Talk to Mike at Rapid Motorsports, having a motor built their, and he has fixed the mistakes that my local shops have messed up. And has done some great tuning.

 

I'd look into Horsepower Engineering and Combination Motorsports as well.

Jason

 

When i think solid roller i think of Futral.

 

all good shops for sure, i went with Hpe on my motor, but its not a SR...

 

HPE hands down. ESP has good knowledge with these SR setups as well and so does thunder for that matter. Call around!

 

futral motor sports

 

Rapid...raced fastest LS1 cars before all these other guys...great work.

 

I did one of the first running solid rollers years before anyone while working at SAM where I still work in teh mornings. We ran 10s before anyone else and ran nines before anyone else. Not taking anything away from Rapid but they were no where near before what we did or I did at the school.

Also was probably the first to do many solid rollers with NO problems or oil pressure whoas like I have had to fix from all these other shops including some mentioned. The worst was APE which did quite a few no oil pressure making solid roller deals which were solely the result of wrong parts and no attention to detail. At the time everyone thought they were the SH&T as well and they made extremely amateur mistakes.

Just keep in mind that a solid roller is a real cam and you must know what you are doing to keep it all together. I have like 5 different types of lifters for different apps but they all work. A solid roller deal is a complete system as well and you must check up on it at least a little or you may have problems. The upside is that you can turn more rpm and use more radical profiles since you can step the pressure way up.

 

I agree with Erik and his expertise. He had all the info I needed after my first low oil pressure solid roller motor. He fixed me right up and even diagnosed my problem of why I had an issue to begin with. Then built back up my iron block to a very nice 415 ci bottom end and suuplied me with the correct parts to make it work.

 

Erik is the man! HPE all the way for any buildup imo, solid roller, or anything else, you cant go wrong with his advice. HPE is a top notch shop.

 

Dont forget about MTI and LME, also good shops that have experience with solid cams.

Erik-From what is all changed, modified or machined on the LS1 in order for a soil roller application to work. I know the obvious, (cam, lifters, pushrods, ect.) but I remember reading somewhere that the heads needed to be machined. Just wanted a clarification on what is all done.

 

Well you have to have room on the heads for solid roller springs is the biggest problem especially with stock or OEM LS1 heads and regular LS1 heads just do not have room for a bigger solid roller spring. This requires removal of the heads and machining to do it right and you also may often need new valves to get enough installed height as well for the newer springs. The newer aftermarket heads are sometimes already set up for bigger springs but not the OEM ones.

Then you must have the right parts that work together for the cam and lobe profile you are using which should be taylored to the intended usage and duty cycle or the whole deal may not last too long and may eat itself or break parts, rockers etc. I probably run into that at least once a month as well right here in Houston. You just don't snap off Jesel mohawks on a 7500 rpm engine! You also must have lifters that work in an LS1 block or you will run into oiling issues of many kinds.

We all know about the various shop cars of old that spent literally years trying to run right or make oil pressure and yet this was usually right under their noses. Not pointing any fingers but it happens more than you'd think because I've had to fix this situation all too many times even from some of the big shops mentioned above. Just because you've built a lot of LS1s does not mean you know what you are doing unfortunately and you can't always trust the parts manufacturers either.

"Most" of the bigger shops have finally figured this stuff out but I still see it all the time. The LS1 is just still kind of new to the scene and finally we have some reasonable parts that will work on solid roller stuff. I use the Morel solid roller drop in lifters on street solid rollers with lower lift but now there are many that can do the job right (and wrong) at least. I have some custom lifters for really large cams.

 

Get em Erik, ha ha. This is exactly why my 434 is being built over there. I've never met anyone as willing to explain why things work and don't work in these motors as well as Erik does so. I've heard more horror stories about things that've been tried with these motors then you could ever possibly imagine when it comes to solid roller applications.