Hey guys,

I've heard in the past that in order to switch to a solid roller setup the block had to be machined so that the lifter bores were bigger. Is this true? I can't imagine why the solid lifter couldn't have the exact same external dimensions as the hydraulics.


Gauge

 

You sure they wer'nt talking about machining out the spring seats so you could fit a much bigger / heavier spring in there to control the agressive cam profile? Perhaps it was an aged article and they were using BB solid lifters?

 

I would think that the solid lifters for LS motors would b the same size...wouldnt make sense to change unless strength was taken into consideration..

 

GuitsBoy is right. This was my father talking about the 502 BBC in his Nova. I figured the LS1 and the BB would be the same in this situation... either both would require machining or neither of them. Why do the BBs need machining for solid lifters?

 

I believe the older BB chevys had larger bores than the standardized 1987+ lifter bore. I assume he was talking about using older BB lifters in an older SB application. Just a thought.

 

I'm pretty sure you have to machine the heads to accept larger 3/8 pushrods.

 

A lot of the lower horsepower big blocks used to come with 5/16 pushrods, for some reason, and you would have to open up the head a little to use 3/8 or 7/16. What you may have been thinking of, on the lifters, is boring out the lifter holes and pressing in a bronze liner. Older BBC's didn't have the lifter bores lined up true to the cam as good as they should have been. This used to be a common practice with the race engine builders, but it wasn't a very good idea for a street engine.

 

Not really. It all depends on spring pressure. Theres a couple SR guys on here running your standard issue 5/16.