Roller cam idea that I'm rolling around in my noggin....

[OldGuyGTX]

Call Bullet Cams for a recommendation. I would avoid Comp Cams. I’ve heard of a lot of issues with quality control recently.

Same line I heard back in the 80s.

 

[Kern Dog]

KD, I have run a solid roller cam in my 500 motor. But my motor is too different from yours to recommend it.

You didn’t ask for opinions, but I’ll give one. For your application I would recommend the Comp Cam’s Extreme Energy solid roller. It is advertised as a street roller, but it’s no lollipop either. It’s the XR286R. It 286/292 advertised and 248/254 @ 0.050. I think you’ll be close to 0.600” lift with the 1.6’s.

Let the fun begin



The cam that I recommended in my earlier post is what I'm guessing would be a good balance for you. It will definately idle way better than your large solid cam that you have now, but not as good as the MP 528. It will likely make more power than your larger cam, but will tolerate a less valvespring pressure and won't be too hard on valvetrain parts. But this is just my opinion on what might work for you.

I'm still tossing this idea around.
To repeat, my goal is to make the same or more power than I do now while having adequate vacuum to run the power brakes.
I do not drag race but I do hammer on the car on the street away from traffic. I currently drive the car less than 2000 miles a year.
The transmission is a Tremec 5 speed that doesn't take to high RPM shifts very well. To add, while the Edelbrock heads are ported, I don't think they are 6500 rpm worthy. Because of this, I'm interested in something that peaks no higher than 6000 RPMs.
The '528 ran fine, the Lunati does too. I never felt like the '528 was a slug at high RPMs but the Lunati is not quite as snappy under 2000.
I'm trying to understand how a roller cam can be more drivable and still make more power.
Currently I have a '68 Plymouth with a 451 and a '69 Coronet with a 440 at my place getting some work done. Both have milder hydraulic flat tappet cams and both engines sound much quieter under the hood compared to mine. I'm not against a solid but if I can get decent performance with a hydraulic and lose some of the clatter, that really would be nice.

 

[Cranky]

I'm still tossing this idea around.
To repeat, my goal is to make the same or more power than I do now while having adequate vacuum to run the power brakes.
I do not drag race but I do hammer on the car on the street away from traffic. I currently drive the car less than 2000 miles a year.
The transmission is a Tremec 5 speed that doesn't take to high RPM shifts very well. To add, while the Edelbrock heads are ported, I don't think they are 6500 rpm worthy. Because of this, I'm interested in something that peaks no higher than 6000 RPMs.
The '528 ran fine, the Lunati does too. I never felt like the '528 was a slug at high RPMs but the Lunati is not quite as snappy under 2000.
I'm trying to understand how a roller cam can be more drivable and still make more power.
Currently I have a '68 Plymouth with a 451 and a '69 Coronet with a 440 at my place getting some work done. Both have milder hydraulic flat tappet cams and both engines sound much quieter under the hood compared to mine. I'm not against a solid but if I can get decent performance with a hydraulic and lose some of the clatter, that really would be nice.

Do you have the Eddy RPM's? Don't remember what all you have.....heck, can't remember what I did yesterday half the time....but if you do have the RPM heads, they will go over 6500 with the right combo.

 

[DeltaV]

Is you brake booster in good health @Kern Dog ?

I like what @pnora posted in another thread:

Post in thread '440 camshaft' 440 camshaft

 

[Kern Dog]

The heads are Edelbrock, ported slightly. I do have a brake booster, new when installed about 3 months ago. This cam produces too little vacuum so I have an electric vacuum pump.
It works but adds complexity.

 

[1 Wild R/T]

The short answer.... contact Dwayne Porter at 802-951-1955.

 

[RemCharger]

He never seemed to be a fan of hydraulic rollers.

 

[1 Wild R/T]

He never seemed to be a fan of hydraulic rollers.

I'm not either... More complex = more to go wrong... The point of hydraulics is less maintenance, if your running a roller cam in an old school V8 you should be ready to pull the valve covers once a year.... Besides, the valve covers were probably due for new gaskets anyway.... And there's no question solids are more stable at high RPM's

 

[Kern Dog]

When I had the engine out last year, Dwayne and I did speak about camshaft options.
I told him about this Lunati and why I was leaning towards reusing it....having the matching lifters made it less stressful for break in.
Dwayne didn't dismiss the notion of a roller but didn't fully embrace it either.
I don't recall specifics but he did say that there are success stories with hydraulic rollers for street use. I seem to recall him suggesting to avoid extended idling though. He did mention that a roller may not make that much more power than the '528 I pulled out. To my inexperienced mind, (with roller lifters/cams for sure) I am at the mercy of the knowledge of others.
He suggested that I contact a member on another forum that he knew had thousands of miles on a hydraulic roller 440. I did and he was quite happy with it and did exceed 6500 rpms on occasion.
I'll admit, I've been a bit intimidated by the unknown. Nobody that I personally know has one in their classic car.
The expense is an issue but not a deal breaker.

 

[fourgearsavoy]

I have a strange Isky solid roller in my car now and it must have been a custom grind. It's a 528 lift 244 @ 0.50 and it has very nice street manners and it's very quiet with the lash tight. I put it in to get some better street manners but now I miss the "out of control" acceleration the old 620 lift 260 duration solid flat tappet I had in the car before. So now I want something in between the 2 cams but it seem like the wait list is rather long with delivery maybe by May for a Howards cam.

Gus

 

[Geoff 2]

Kern,
One of the problems with engines like 440 that was NEVER designed for a roller lifter [ RL ] is the lever action on the lifter. When H-D introduced the RL in 1929, the lifter body was enclosed in a bore for it's entire length. This is because there is a levering action on the RL body as the lobe starts to lift the lifter. The greater the lobe lift, the smaller the base circle on the cam. This means that the RL sits lower & the damaging lever action increases on high lift cams. That causes distortion of the body. Hyd lifters walk a tightrope between enough clearance between the inner piston & the body so that it doesn't bind versus too much clearance that allows bleed down at low rpms. The body distortion with RL lifters exacerbates the problems. FT lifters do not have this leverage issue & do not suffer from the problem.
Your favourite US expression 'A crap shoot' applies when running hyd RLs in engines not originally designed for them.
I would run a solid RL cam. Speak to Chris Ryan at Comp Cams for a custom grind. Run the lash tight & it will be quiet. I would go for 106 LSA. Every true oranges-to-oranges cam test I have seen where only the LSA was changed showed the tighter LSA made more tq & veeery often more peak HP. Sig Erson was onto this decades ago, see below.
Do not know how to link it, but watch the Cattle Dog Garage video; 34 min version, not the longer one. Numerous dyno tests done using DVs 128 rule.

 

[Mopar Hunter]

He suggested that I contact a member on another forum that he knew had thousands of miles on a hydraulic roller 440. I did and he was quite happy with it and did exceed 6500 rpms on occasion.

Do you have his cam card information?

 

[Kern Dog]

I do not.

 

[PRHeads]

I have a strange Isky solid roller in my car now and it must have been a custom grind. It's a 528 lift 244 @ 0.50 and it has very nice street manners and it's very quiet with the lash tight. I put it in to get some better street manners but now I miss the "out of control" acceleration the old 620 lift 260 duration solid flat tappet I had in the car before. So now I want something in between the 2 cams but it seem like the wait list is rather long with delivery maybe by May for a Howards cam.

Gus

When it comes to street/strip cars in particular……..if you have “enough” of the things required to take advantage of a fairly big cam………you’re def going to leave power on the table by using a smaller cam.
You’d be trading drivability and good road manners at the expense of upper rpm power.
It’s like Goldie locks. Too big…….too small……..just right.
And what size is “just right”, is driver/combo dependent.

It’s one of those, “be careful of what you ask for” scenarios.

 

[PRHeads]

He suggested that I contact a member on another forum that he knew had thousands of miles on a hydraulic roller 440. I did and he was quite happy with it and did exceed 6500 rpms on occasion.

Post #4 and #36

 

[PRHeads]

He never seemed to be a fan of hydraulic rollers.

Actually, it’s the lifters I’ve been unhappy with.
I got to dyno one BBM with the new Comp Evolution lifters, and I was pretty happy with the outcome.

I made pulls to 6300 with no signs of valvetrain unhappiness, and I felt the noise level was very reasonable.
Not “silent”, but def less clackity than several others I’ve heard.
I’d use them again.

Pump gas 505, EZ heads, HR cam…….. 640tq/640hp.
I stacked the deck for success with the cam……..using nice, stable, high rpm marine lobes(but that type of lobe doesn’t promote “high vacuum”).

 

[Kern Dog]

Given that this isn't a race car and that shifting at over 6000 rpms isn't as easy as it could be with this Tremec transmission, something that makes the most power below 6000 rpms makes the most sense.

 

[PRHeads]

my goal is to make the same or more power than I do now while having adequate vacuum to run the power brakes.

My initial thought to that is………to make enough vacuum to run the power brakes, you’d have to pull out quite a bit of duration from the current cam for that to happen.
If using solid roller lobes that fall into what I consider “street friendly”, I don’t think that you’d end with enough duration to make “more” power than the current cam.

Apples to apples(duration/lsa/lobe intensity), it’s not like swapping to a roller in a combo like yours is going to result in a 40-50hp gain.
I’m thinking more like 25-30hp(no way to really know without actually trying it).
So, let’s say the roller is 30hp better.
Now take out a bunch of duration and spread the lsa(neither one of which helps the power in this application) to facilitate higher vacuum for the brakes……and any power gains would be minimal(if any).

Now, with the HR, since the ramps are so much longer, you really have to pull out some duration to get the vacuum up……so I don’t see that not resulting in a power reduction from where you are now.

Sure, there are SR options that would improve drivability and make more power than what you have now……..but it’s not certain they’d make enough vacuum to run the brakes.
The cam BSB67 referenced is probably a good starting point.
Someone could model that cam in your combo on an engine sim and see if the predicted idle vacuum sounds like it would get the job done.
This could be done with the current combo as well, to establish some sort of baseline power level.
Then play with various cam duration and LSA combos and see what it takes to make power/make vacuum.

A hot street car is a series of compromises……..and the cam choice is one of them.
I can’t think of any street/strip cam I’ve sold where the top of the priority list was, “make the most power possible”.
Something else was always a higher priority.

 

[PRHeads]

Kern, my guess is the current combo feels like it pulls hard all they way past 6000.
As in, you haven’t felt it reach the end of the useable power at that point.

And, when you had the 528 cam in it, by 6000 you kinda knew it was at the end of it.

Yes? No?

As a point of reference……
From about 20 years ago:
10:1 493 with bowl blended RPM heads, SD intake/850DP, 2” headers, SFT cam pretty much splitting the difference between Kerns current Lunati and the 528 cam.
It was 250 at .050 on a 112, about .550 lift with 1.5’s.
Made peak TQ @4300, peak HP @5700, and at 6200 it had lost 24hp.
I can’t recall if the car it went in had power brakes or not, but I think it did(and may have used a vacuum reservoir).
It was a wagon with A/C.

This is as close as I can come up with for a SFT/SR comparo for a BBM stroker of the same displacement and similar CR -

Engine #1 is above…….engine #2 is also a 493, but has std port prepped/blended EZ heads, but is closer to 10.5cr.
Also used a SD intake, but it had an HP950 on it.
Instead of 2” Hookers, it used the dyno headers(2-2 1/8 x 4).
It had a 252 at .050 112lsa roller in it…….about .620 lift with 1.5’s.

The heads have roughly 35cfm more intake flow at .600 lift, and better chambers along with bigger intake valves.

So, with the higher CR, better heads, dyno headers, and solid roller cam……..the peak to peak HP difference was only 30tq and 27hp.

My feeling on #2 is that the intake was holding that combo back more than it would have been on #1.

 

[Kern Dog]

The first two questions:
#1, YES, the Lunati feels unlimited. It just keeps pulling from approx 3000 and up.
#2, The '528 ran strong too but didn't pull as hard over 5000 rpms. It still ran well but not with as much intensity as the Lunati.
My head starts swimming when technical talk gets outside of my level of knowledge. Trying to follow it all starts to feel like math class where once I get a little confused, everything after that point is blurry.
I'm glad that you (Dwayne) remember me and the combination.
Yes, this Lunati does feel strong even as I'm running fast to 6000. It seems to have a power peak beyond the point that this transmission likes to shift.
I had this cam in this engine in approximately 2012-2014 with a 3.91 gear and didn't have any complaints about the low end power. I later wanted it to be a better all around driver so I made several changes in a 3-5 months...3.55 gears, (still with the Lunati for a few months) tighter converter and the '528 cam. The '528 felt great and seemed to be a better fit with the 3.55s than the bigger Lunati.
I have had 1.6 rocker arms since 2102.
The '528 continued to perform well but I was antsy to regain that higher rpm pull that the Lunati had. The '528 never nosed over or dropped off drastically but I did remember the stronger pull I felt with the Lunati.
I had an automatic back then so higher rpm shifts weren't an issue.
I don't have to see a power increase from what I have now, I was hoping to at least match what I have (or close to it) but to move the power band lower in the scale.
I do admit that the peace of mind of a roller cam being nowhere near as likely to fail as a flat tappet has very strong appeal.
If I had to retain the vacuum pump to keep the power brakes working, so be it. Like Dwayne stated, there are always compromises. The reason I'd like to run without the pump is because the '528 ran well enough to run without it. The brakes worked fine with the 17" of idle vacuum I had with it.
There is so much that I don't know and am trying to understand....I was curious if it was possible to make similar power between the '528 and Lunati and have enough vacuum. I thought that something specific to a roller ramp design may help with that.