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Is a roller cam worth it?

BriceRoad

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The engine for my Barracuda (440) is at the machine shop getting rebuilt. The machine shop suggested a roller cam. It will cost $1500 extra to go with a roller cam. I don't mind the money and like the idea of a roller cam but every brand of cam/lifters I research I find horror stories where the lifter explodes and sends metal throughout the engine. It seems that these problems happen later on (meaning not right after installation) so the failure is the fault of the manufacturer not the user. Not only does the manufacturer not pay for all the repairs, which I can understand but they don't even replace their own faulty part. Since I don't have access to production numbers it is impossible to figure out the failure rate. It could be 1% or 30%. I don't know. So I guess what I am asking is it worth the risk? I will spend an extra $1500 to get maybe 30 extra HP and run the risk of the lifter blowing up. I just don't drive around town. I have driven my car to Ohio (500 miles one way). I have always used Mopar lifters with Flat Tappet cams and I never once in 35 years had a failure. Just curious what others think.
 

gzig5

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Solid roller or Hydraulic?
Roller is worth it if you are trying to maximize HP and have heads and cam that can take advantage of it. I don't trust roller lifters with needle bearings. IMO a street car doesn't need that last little bit of friction improvement. Needle bearings are more likely to fail than a bushed roller. I have one in my drawer that convinced me, along with a lifetime of industrial machine bearing experience. Got to watch your spring pressure for longevity.
Hydraulic roller lifters don't have a great reputation these days either, with failures on the hydraulic side of it.
Seems that a solid flat tappet is the more reliable and least expensive way to make HP. Especially for a street driven car. Nearly the performance potential but a lot cheaper and less scary from a reliability standpoint, once broken in correctly. I'd take the $1500 saved and put it towards better heads, fuel injection, or something that you'll get more use from.
This is my opinion, I'm no Guru.
 

budascuda

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Of course the machine shop wants to convince you to spend 1500 more...... They might get another 10,000 later.
Ask your machine shop " should I go with rollers but get another shop do the work "
and tben, they might have an unbiased opinion. Maybe!

As a rule, you can't fully trust anybody's advice If they stand to gain .

If you like to punch it, go with solid.
 

Chryco Psycho

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here is the problem , no cam is without faults there is good & bad with every design ....
Flat tappets hyd or solid require special oils now as the off the shelf oils lack the zinc to prevent failures , but they are far cheaper , you will need adjustable rockers & good oil .
Roller cams can use any oils but there is no provision for oiling the roller so as above use bushed rollers & DO not baby the engine the oil has to be thrown up from the crank to keep the rollers alive & keep idling to a minimum, rollers cost a lot more $$ also as you have found out .
Hyd cams are limited by the spring pressure , lifters often fail as the internal valve cannot withstand the spring pressures ,
Solid cams roller or flat tappet can use fast lift ramps & amazing spring pressures for max power .
Most builds I do use solid flat tappet cams for cost & reliability .
 

BriceRoad

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The machine shop guy doing my engine seems like a very good guy to me. He wasn't trying to talk me into the roller cam. He told me straight out that it didn't matter to him as his labor would be the same with either cam and he told me I could buy the cam myself so he wasn't making any money on the parts. I think he was just giving me options.

I do baby this car about 95% of the time. When I am going to and from shows there can be a lot of idling if I get stuck in traffic. The more I think about it the more I am leaning going with a flat tappet cam. I think the Mopar cam with .509 lift should be good for my application. I may have to get custom push rods or adjustable rockers because the first time the engine was rebuilt the builder cut both the block and heads 0.020" each.

Thanks for the replies.
Phil
 

wedg2go

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I run a roller setup in a 440. One tiny little advantage is having less of a worry at picking oil when it's due for a change. All flat tappet cams, to my knowledge, will require zinc in their product. Most oils, on the shelves, at auto parts stores don't have it. Most, not all.

One other note worthy thought is to be sure the oil contains the right amount of zinc. More is not necessarily better.
 

Chryco Psycho

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The Mopar cams were dsigned almost 50 years ago & the 509 was 1 of the worst with long duration & low lift , if you want to stay with Mopar the 528 solid is far better .
Better yet Lunati or Engle or Hughes have much better grinds developed in the last 15 years or so , I can help you pick one to match what you are doing if you like .
 

budascuda

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So
The machine shop guy doing my engine seems like a very good guy to me. He wasn't trying to talk me into the roller cam. He told me straight out that it didn't matter to him as his labor would be the same with either cam and he told me I could buy the cam myself so he wasn't making any money on the parts. I think he was just giving me options.

I do baby this car about 95% of the time. When I am going to and from shows there can be a lot of idling if I get stuck in traffic. The more I think about it the more I am leaning going with a flat tappet cam. I think the Mopar cam with .509 lift should be good for my application. I may have to get custom push rods or adjustable rockers because the first time the engine was rebuilt the builder cut both the block and heads 0.020" each.

Thanks for the replies.
Phil

So if the labour is the same, you figure, $1500 extra goes directly into buying a $500 set of roller lifters?
Well, I don't know..... you have met the man and it's up to you to judge. But let me tell you one, if crooks looked and talked like crooks, they would never be able to stick it to an honest man.
 

BriceRoad

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Budascuda, The guy did tell me $1500 extra but he quoted me $400 something for the cam, $500 something for the lifters and another $500 something for adjustable rockers. All from Comp Cams. As I mentioned he said I could get the parts on my own. He was not pushy at all. I think if he was trying to scam me he would have really tried to talk me into it but he totally left it up to me. I told him I wanted time to think about it and research it and he said sure no problem. If anything I think he recommended the roller cam because breaking in the roller cam is much easier than the flat tappet but I am just speculating. I went to this shop because he came highly recommended by a friend who when he used him felt he was honest as well. I feel he has been straight forward with me throughout the process. I am going to call him tomorrow and tell him I changed my mind about the roller cam. I am sure he will be fine with it.
 

budascuda

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Hey BriceRoad, I am glad that you have got yourself a good shop and an honest person to do the work for you.
I just wanted to make sure you are seeing it from different angles, that's all.

Chryco is a wealth of knowledge, and I wouldn't think twice about asking for his advice, since he has offered it so graciously too!
The best of luck and wishes to you sir.
 

shakerjoe

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I went hydraulic flat tappet on my resto 440-6. I went with the Lunati 73100K7 kit which was cam, lifters and springs and locks.Cam 10230703 :
494int/513ex, duration 226int/234ex at .050, 271int/279ex advertised duration. Previous to me motor was already .030 over, I cleaned and reused the pistons rods and crank and all new bearings of course, think they are TRW 2355(?) off top of my head, .039 head gasket cleaned up 906’s for a just under 9.6cr pump gas stock exhaust manifolds, alum intake and stock six pack carbs, built TF with shift kit 2800converter and built 3.55 8 3/4 SG. Proper break in of cam on fire up and Gibbs Driven motor oil on changes, and using the factory dual point distributor. This was a rebuild back to stock, I have plenty of vacuum for the PB, motor idles beautifully, pulls like a freight train and is only street driven. I like the manners of the motor and the Lunati cam...
 

budascuda

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I went hydraulic flat tappet on my resto 440-6. I went with the Lunati 73100K7 kit which was cam, lifters and springs and locks.Cam 10230703 :
494int/513ex, duration 226int/234ex at .050, 271int/279ex advertised duration. Previous to me motor was already .030 over, I cleaned and reused the pistons rods and crank and all new bearings of course, think they are TRW 2355(?) off top of my head, .039 head gasket cleaned up 906’s for a just under 9.6cr pump gas stock exhaust manifolds, alum intake and stock six pack carbs, built TF with shift kit 2800converter and built 3.55 8 3/4 SG. Proper break in of cam on fire up and Gibbs Driven motor oil on changes, and using the factory dual point distributor. This was a rebuild back to stock, I have plenty of vacuum for the PB, motor idles beautifully, pulls like a freight train and is only street driven. I like the manners of the motor and the Lunati cam...

Thats the ticket!
 

BriceRoad

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Shaker Joe, thank you very much for the information. I just happened to be looking at Lunati cams yesterday. Your engine is very similar to mine. When I checked my compression I got 9.67:1 but I admit I could be off slightly. I did try to be as accurate as possible. My engine has similar pistons (not sure if they are TRW or Sealed Power), 346 heads, forged crank and stock connecting rods. If you guys don't mind let me back track a bit and tell the whole story:

I got my car Barracuda in 2001. One of the first things I did was get the engine rebuilt. I took it to this guy who told me, (in a Bulgarian accent) " I make you big horsepower". The original cam I choose is the MoPar .474 lift DUR at 0.050"--238/238 and LSA 110 degrees. The builder told me to use a .509 cam. He never mentioned what company. He also cut the deck and heads 0.020" without telling me and bored the engine to 0.030" over. He rebuilt the short block and heads separately. I installed the cam and completed the assembly. Because I had speedometer problems I don't know the exact miles on the engine but it lasted me these 19 years and I would say it has about 15K miles on it. Well, I never got the big horsepower he promised as it just didn't pull hard at all. It could hardly do a burnout. The pro was the engine was reliable. No mechanical problems but I had a lot of pinging problems. It took a lot of tuning by me to get the pinging out and I got most of it out. It still pinged once in a while at WOT. I use an Edelbrock 750 carburetor and I have read very bad things about this carb on the Moparts forum. I did race the car (back then I had 3.23 rear gears) twice and it ran a disappointing 16.03 ET @ 93 MPH. The asterisks was I don't have a blow proof bell housing so I was kind of babying it off the line. A guy at the track told me that with my MPH I should be in the 14s. I don't know if that is true or not. In hindsight I wish I would have tried a different carburetor before trying the a different cam. You would not believe how many times I tried different jets and rods and it never seemed to make a large difference. Actually a long time ago I did try a Edelbrock 650 but the pinging was really bad. I wish I would have used the jets from the 750 in the 650. I wonder if the engine would have run better.

So after all these years I finally decided to try to get this engine to perform like it should. So I decided to change the cam. I installed a Comp Cams hydraulic flat tappet cam but something went wrong. I ran it for 13 minutes @ 2K RPM and it sounded great but I shut it down due to starting to overheat. The next day it wouldn't start and I found the damage. The cam/lifters got destroyed and I had a bunch of bent push rods and metal got sent throughout the engine. Still not exactly sure what happened but my guess is the pushrods were too long and the springs bottomed out. So that's why the engine is at the machine shop now. Charlie (machinist) is working with me every step of the way. He is going to make sure the entire is assembled properly and as long as I break it correctly this engine will run again.

Now I really need to pick out a cam. I was looking at the Hughes SEH2428BL cam. It has DUR @ 0.050" of 224/228 Lift of .518/.530 and LSA of 111 degrees. Or possibly the next size up. The SEH 2832BL which has a Lift of .530/.538 and a DUR @ 0.050" 228/232 and LSA of 110 degrees. Charlie told me the most important things when picking out a cam are DUR @ 0.050" and LSA. He said lift isn't that important. He said I want to keep my DUR @ 0.050" in the 230s.

And last like you Shaker Joe even though Plymouth never made a Barracuda Gran Coupe with a 440 I want to build my car as if they did. I run factory manifolds, factory exhaust (Accurate) , and I have a Passon Hemi 4 speed with OD and 3.91 rear gears.

I really like the way your car runs Shaker Joe and that's pretty much exactly what I am trying to do. What size and type carburetor to you use?

Sorry for the long post.
Phil
 

BriceRoad

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Just looking at Lunati reviews. Every company I look at it there are horror stories. Every single one. I feel like this is a huge gamble and if it blows up and it is not my fault it will be a very ling time before this car runs again because I don't have deep pockets. I admit I screwed up with that Comp Cams but I do know how to break in an engine as I did it successfully the first time. Perhaps I should stick with Mopar parts as I have never had a bad cam from them but I wouldn't be surprised if I could find horror stories about the factory parts.One thing that seems to be undisputed is that the owner of Hughes likes to talk down to people. I have read that numerous times but I never talked to him myself. I figure they can't all be wrong. There must be some truth in it but even so how does that relate to his products? Can't say.

One other thing: I discount the "waiting for a long time to get my parts or I was sent the wrong parts bad reviews" for all companies. What scares me are the I installed the parts correctly and they failed thus ruining my engine bad reviews.

I called Charlie and told him I want to go with a flat tappet cam and he said no problem. Now I just have to figure out which one.
Phil
 
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Chryco Psycho

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Cam failures are common now partially due to crap oil & the fact that very few flat tappet lifters are made anymore , You must use Johnson lifters or the EDM type that ol out the bottom .
Every cam company has failures above but not due to the cam itself , Many companies warranty the cam if it fails during break in .
Personally I disagree with you machinist get as much lift as possible at any given duration this is free HP . I do agree that duration @ .050 & LSA are the most important factors , lower LSA increases the rpm where the cam works which duration also affects .I am not sure how you want the engine to work so I cannot suggest which cam would be better for your intended purpose .
I mostly use Lunati grinds , they work Etremely well & have great performance & vacuum & drivability .
I generally only use Proform Carbs , I use performance series & double the CI minimum , Proforms have removable air bleeds to dial the carb in perfectly .
The pinging is caused by using open chamber heads , I have run over 10:1 compression with no ping on pump gas with closed chamber heads .
Let me know how I can help ....
 

BriceRoad

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CP, thank you for your response. Perhaps I didn't explain myself properly. Basically what Charlie told me is that if you have two similar cams in DUR and LSA but one cam has 10 or 20 thousands more lift, the extra lift isn't that important.

I want my car to run like Shaker Joe's car. I want it to look stock, pull hard, run cool, do a decent burnout and be reliable. As for the 1/4 mile I would be happy if it ran a low 14 but now that Raceway Park (Englishtown, NJ) is closed who knows if I ever will race it again.

At this point I feel buying an aftermarket cam is a crap shoot but the engine won't run without it so I think I am going to try the same Lunati cam as Shaker Joe. I was planning on using Lucas break in oil and zinc additive and then after break in running Lucas High Zinc motor oil.
 

Chryco Psycho

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you did explain yourself clearly , I just believe if you can get an extra .020 lift at the same duration why not , it is free HP !
Too much zinc can also be a problem , you need around 1200 ppm
 

BriceRoad

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What problems can be cause by too much zinc?

Then perhaps I should go with the next higher size cam?
Phil
 
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