tuxedo

WHAT ARE THE PROS AND CONS OF HAVING A SOLID LIFTER CAR VERSUS A HYDRAULIC LIFTER CAR. NEVER HAD A SOLID LIFTER ENGINE AND JUST WONDERED ABOUT THE ADDTIONAL MAINTAINENCE AND EVERYTHING ELSE. :chevy

SWCDuke

Mechanical lifters require periodic checking and, if necessary, resetting of the the valve clearance. No special tools are required. That's it. There is no "everything else." It's no big deal.

As far as the pros are concerned the LT-1 cam produces the best across the board torque curve of any of the Chevy special high performance hydraulic cams, and I expect it beats a lot of the aftermarket cams to.

Depending on the other engine configuration features the LT-1 cam provides an eighty percent torque bandwidth from about 2200 to over 6000.

Duke

waynec

I agree, just some occasional adjustment (which can tend to be a bit messy because its hard to contain all the oil with the valve cover off), and the adjustments eat up your feeler gauges, and perhaps a bit more noticeable lifter noise (but not much if they are kept properly adjusted).

ARed64

The Pros of the hydaulic lifter engines is you don't have to do anything. A hydraulic lifter engine will perform just as well as a solid lifter engine for cruising or typical street driving. If you do little to no driving where you will be at the upper end of the RPM scale, there is no advantage to a solid lifter engine since you will never experience valve lifter float. I rarely get my car above 5K RPMs. In my opinion, for typical crusing, the solid lifters give no advantage. The disadvantages are noise and maintenance.

J Lance Miller

I'll agree to most of what you say - hydraulic lifters are a "adjust and forget" item and will perform equally cruising on the street. I tend to believe however, that the noise and maintenance are advantages. I love the sound and I love tinkering with my car - trying all 50 billion methods for adjustment (including those that fling hot oil all over the place and crush feeler gauges) :smash: and feeling the sweet results of my labor when they are correctly set.

Flareside

It's funny how people have such different outlooks. The disadvantages listed above are exactly why I'm going solid next. For me, the noise and maintenance add to the experience. My hydraulic is quite and maintenance free, also know as boring ;)

-Joe

396 RAT

Solids are the only way to FLY......
A good % of the HP dosent seem come in till
hyd's are floating............
There is a whole world between 5000 and 6500.:reddevil
Solids seem to spin up much faster.
& throttle responce is also much better.
Much more fun IMHO..............
Worth the extra little bit of maint.
Most of us dont put that many miles on 'em anyway.
So adj. solids is not something you have to do all that often.
But I do agree hyd cams have gotten better over the yrs.
But will still take a solid V8 every time over a hyd.
:cheers: :cheers: :cheers:

SWCDuke

For those of you who are still adjusting mechanical lifters with the engine running you're living in the stone age.

If you want to know how to adjust SB mechanical lifters with the engine not running, which includes an adjustment in the clearance specs to compensate for the actual rocker ratio (It's not 1.5:1 as you likely believe), e-mail me and I'll send you the Word document that explains it all.

Duke

Mag Red Man

Solids are for men, hydraulics are for...... :)

JohnZ

The mechanical "singing noise" of properly-adjusted solids is delightful, and, as Duke points out, you don't have to do it "hot and running" any more. ALL of my toys have solid lifters - wouldn't have it any other way!

Gordonm

Never adjusted my solids with the motor running. Do it hot and motor off. The sound of the solids is :cool: compared to noiseless hyd. cams. I adjsut them once a year and check more frequently but they seem to stay in adjustment. I only drive about 1K a year but a lot of it is in the upper rpm. wouldn't go back to hyd. Been thinking about a solid roller next

ARed64

.. . for what? Women? That is fine with me. While I am out cruising in my car on a nice day getting the admiring looks and giving rides to women, you will be with the guys futzing around with your solid lifters.

...which is Ok, if you do high performance driving and that is what you want to do. Been there done that. Its all in what you use the car for. There is plenty of stuff to maintain on these cars given the time I have available. If I can eliminate one less thing and there is no down side, its fine with me.

Flareside

Uh oh, it sounds like somebody needs a C5... ;)

garagedweller2

Nothing like the clicking of mechanical tappets(lifters):)
extra maintainance is worth it
what is the highest possible redline that can be obtained from a modified 327 anyway? :confused: :cool:

Barry's70LT1

Count me in for the solids. Adjust hot, and stopped.
You can adjust half of them at TDC and the other half @ 360 degrees.
It's hard to beat a LT-1 cam, and many have tried.
Barry

SWCDuke

The method to adjust eight at TDC #1 and eight at TDC #6 will only work with the Duntov cam, not the 30-30 or LT-1 cams because of their long clearance ramps. This is based on actual lift-crank angle diagrams that I have for both cams.

Because of the long ramps on the 30-30 both the inlet and exhaust on still on the ramp at TDC of any cylinder so if you adjust them at TDC they'll be loose. With the LT-1 cam one is on the ramp and the other is just barely off the ramp, so the 30-30 procedure is the way to go. It can also be used for the Duntov of any other mechanical lifter cam.

Based on measurements I've taken over the years, there's not a lot of difference between hot idling clearance and cold clearance because the steel pushrod and iron block/head have about the same expansion rate. When the engine is run hard the exhaust in particular will close up due to expansion of the hot valve stem, and that's why exhaust clearances are typically more generous than inlet clearances. It's a lot easier and convenient to adjust them cold, so that's what I recommend.

Now that I think of it the only vehicle (cars and bikes) that I have ever owned with hydraulic lifters were two Mercedes - an '84 190E and an '88 190E2.6. The '84 is gone but I still own the 2.6 along with the SWC and three other vehicles that have a total of 48 valves with shims over buckets!!! Hey, no wonder, I'm still single. I spend all my time checking and adjusting valves. ;)

Duke

P.S. For those of you who requested the valve adjustment procedure document, you'll note that the co-author is none other than our own JohnZ.
John wrote it up based on the procedure I developed from my cam research.





[Modified by SWCDuke, 4:43 PM 12/14/2001]

63Corvette

Please send me your fail safe super solidlifter adjust.\\
thanks.

Vetterodder

I don't think most mid years see enough miles to make the extra maintenence of solids that much of an issue. In some cases, life might even be simpler with solids because you set them to a spec that can be measured and no guess work is required. There have been numerous threads on the forum about problems getting hydraulics adjusted right and about trouble-shooting them when they aren't. Years ago I was taught, for a particular engine, to set solids hot the first time, let the engine cool before replacing the valve covers, and then measure them again after the engine had completely cooled. Write down the figures and use them to set the valves cold in the future.

Barry's70LT1

SWCDuke
Looks like I need a copy of the adjustment document as well.
I'll send you an email request now.
Thanks in advance.
Barry

WB6HRO

I set mine up per John and Dukes prceedure for the 097 cam in my 62. I must say the valves have never been so quiet! So let's see the next time I need to adjust valves again is 2011. Every 10 years if they need it or not.

I'm glad that my new Z06 won't be needing valve adjustments, because it looks like alot more stuff needs to come off to get to them.