I tried to run a hydraulic roller, but it didn't match with my driving style, and inadequate valve spring pressure limited my higher rpm usage to the point of valve train instability. I went with a solid roller and would never go back to hydraulic roller in an RB application.

I did find that intermediate shaft gear wear can be substantially reduced by using a collar on the distributor shaft to limit the up and down movement on the intermediate shaft gear, which controls and stabilizes the contact area between the cam gear and the intermediate shaft gear.

Without the collar on the distributor shaft, the distributor shaft tang and the female receiving slot on the intermediate shaft are what limits the up and down movement of the intermediate shaft. Mine was able to move up and down almost 1/4 of an inch before the tang would bottom out, and that excessive movement really wore the softer intermediate shaft gear. I switched to the melonized gear when I installed the new solid roller AND I run the collar. Wear is virtually nil at this point.

On a related note, I also run the aluminum body Milodon oil pump with the altered gearator shape compaared to the stock gearator design, which requires less power to spin and consequently reduces the load on those two gears at a given rpm.

One shops take on the noise........

http://www.hughesengines.com/TechArticles/12hydrauliclifters.php

I tried to run a hydraulic roller, but it didn't match with my driving style, and inadequate valve spring pressure limited my higher rpm usage to the point of valve train instability. I went with a solid roller and would never go back to hydraulic roller in an RB application.

And then, WITH the proper spring pressure you can adjust that Hydro roller .020 from the bottom & yes they are still noisy LOL

never set the preload so low. NEVER at .020 from bottomed out
All the instructions I've seen show from .020 tp .050 preload max, not .150 + preload
I use from 1/4 to 1/3 turn preload depending if the adjusters are 3/8x24 thread with 1/3 turn or 1/4 turn with 7/16x20 threads with a 1/4 turn HOT especially with aluminum heads

Not all hyd roller lifters are created equal.

Not all hyd roller lifters are created equal.

"What were the specs on the hydraulic roller cam and the springs you were using?"

It was an older grind. with 246 I/252 E duration at .050 and just over .550 lift with 1.5 to 1 rockers. I believe it had a 108* LSA.. I don't recall which springs it had, but it turned out the installed height was not correct and the resultant spring pressures were slightly too low. The springs began to lose control of the valve train at around 5800 rpm. The resultant valve train harmonics ended up disintegrating the needle bearings in my exhaust rockers. The intake pushrods were dampened by flexing just enough that they started touching the outside of the intake ports. The whole process was not really detectable by me while it was happening, as the motor would still pull like a freight train to 6500rpm.

I spotted some bits of metal in my heads after coming home from a car show and doing a routine valve covers off check. It took the sleuthing abilities and knowledge of Dwayne Porter to pin point the root cause of loosing just the exhaust rocker bearings. He went completely through my heads, spec'd me a solid roller cam and helped guide Ross through spec'ing a custom piston to lower my compression ratio from 12.2 to 1 down to 10.2 to 1 while still having maximum quench. He rocked the set-up, and Mike at B3 Racing guided me through optimizing my rocker arm set-up. I also upgraded to 7/16ths Manton Stage 5 pushrods. Those things are burly.

I believe the spring pressures set-up was close to the limit of potentially collapsing the lifters if they were too much higher, but that is just speculation.