why are so many guys reluctant to use solid lifters? I had one of the neighbor hood guys stop by with his son, to B.S. about his kid and his kids project car, its an older 1970 Plymouth road runner with a non-original 1971 440 wedge engine that hes building and hes gotten to the point where hes going to select a cam.
theres obviously dozens of cams to choose from and his 11:1 compression engine, has professionally ported heads he found at some swap meet, the heads have the adjustable after market,rockers,and he has a dual quad intake with two 500 carter carbs and a manual transmission, with a 4.11 rear gear ratio. this can potentially be an impressive looking and fast car , but when we got into discussing options both the kid whos 19 and his dad are looking into hydraulic flat tappet cams.
when I suggested the idea of a mild to mid range solid lifter flat tappet cam, that I know from experience would really wake up that engine, the mere mention of solid lifters seemed to act like GARLIC, SOAKED IN HOLY WATER, TO A VAMPIRE, honestly a solid lifter cam with about a 235-240 duration on a 108 LSA with about a .520 -.540 lift would be nearly ideal.
I know CRANE,Part Number: 681201, or CROWER,Part Number: 32309 would work, in this application, as the cars going to be a weekend toy and the kid wants a really lopey idle, and to race the car occasionally, its not going to be transportation.
yet the father and kid are both looking at slightly more radical hydraulic lifter cams.
obviously theres good choices in hydraulic cams but I was rather amazed that they were so darn sure that they could not learn , nore did they want to hear about how to adjust a solid lifter cam, or its advantages?
this is hardly unique to guys building a plymouth engine, I see similar reluctance from guys building chevy and pontiac engines and I just don,t understand why considering that in many cases a good solid lifter cam potentially allows you to get more power and several hundred to over 1000rpm extra in the power band.
theres obviously dozens of cams to choose from and his 11:1 compression engine, has professionally ported heads he found at some swap meet, the heads have the adjustable after market,rockers,and he has a dual quad intake with two 500 carter carbs and a manual transmission, with a 4.11 rear gear ratio. this can potentially be an impressive looking and fast car , but when we got into discussing options both the kid whos 19 and his dad are looking into hydraulic flat tappet cams.
when I suggested the idea of a mild to mid range solid lifter flat tappet cam, that I know from experience would really wake up that engine, the mere mention of solid lifters seemed to act like GARLIC, SOAKED IN HOLY WATER, TO A VAMPIRE, honestly a solid lifter cam with about a 235-240 duration on a 108 LSA with about a .520 -.540 lift would be nearly ideal.
I know CRANE,Part Number: 681201, or CROWER,Part Number: 32309 would work, in this application, as the cars going to be a weekend toy and the kid wants a really lopey idle, and to race the car occasionally, its not going to be transportation.
yet the father and kid are both looking at slightly more radical hydraulic lifter cams.
obviously theres good choices in hydraulic cams but I was rather amazed that they were so darn sure that they could not learn , nore did they want to hear about how to adjust a solid lifter cam, or its advantages?
this is hardly unique to guys building a plymouth engine, I see similar reluctance from guys building chevy and pontiac engines and I just don,t understand why considering that in many cases a good solid lifter cam potentially allows you to get more power and several hundred to over 1000rpm extra in the power band.