Street Rollers HYD vs Solid

After doing some research for a friends engine build, I found that there are often issues with retro-fitting hydraulic rollers to older, non-roller blocks. Some issues are, limited revs because of the heavier lifters, noisey valvetrain, etc. It seems to me, that for a street driven old musclecar, that a solid roller just seems to make more sense. I have been running solid FT and rollers for years and really only run the valves twice a year and even then, there are rarely any issues there. The intent is not to start an argument, it just seems that for older motors, there is less drama to a solid. What are the advantages of a hydraulic roller in these circumstances, other than not having valve adjustments, that I am not seeing?

The answer to your question is that "it depends". Personally I use hyd rollers in everything I build and I recommend them for any builds that are similar to mine. My type of build is 500+ cubic inch pump gas big block with EFI. I think a hyd roller is a perfect match for a big street driver with EFI. It basically gives you a modern feel to the engine with good manners and durability. I wouldn't use a hyd roller in a race car although there are a few guys who are successful with them.

I actually lost some sleep over this decision on my new cam purchase this year I had a hydraulic roller, solid roller, and solid flat tappet all picked out for the RPM range and intended usage of the engine. I talked to lifter manufactures and cam companies for a few months trying to decide what to do for my new camshaft choice. The hydraulic roller was an attractive choice for a street car but I run my stick car at the track and I love the way an aggressive flat tappet revs. A solid roller was on my list as well but the lifters I should run in a street car were cost prohibitive with the intended use of my car. So I eventually went with a nice medium size solid flat tappet cam that will make the noise I want and the budget stayed low so I could afford some other parts I needed for the car.
When I talked to the owner of Gaterman lifters he told me the reason many hydraulic rollers make noise is because people put too much spring pressure on them. I have a set of springs I cant use because I trusted someones judgement before I contacted the manufacturer that told me they were too firm for a hydraulic roller

Gus

Been there done that, don't run a solid roller for a dedicated street car.

Tempest, you wanna qualify that statement? Personally, I have been running a solid roller in my Hemi street car for over 7 years with zero issues. I'm kind of curious about your experience.
AndyF, I am curious, if you had a solid and a hydraulic roller that had similar specs, in what way would there be an advantage to the hydraulic? I run a mild custom Bullet grind(258/685) with Isky Redzone bushing rollers and have negligible valve-train noise. It just seems like the main advantage to hydraulics is no valve adjustment.
Gus, I can sympathise, I struggled on my friends projected build with cam selection as I was building it for him and wanted for him to have a trouble free, quiet valvetrain, torque-monster that would not require a lot of maintainence. We ended up picking a Porter custom Comp nitrided solid with EDM lifters .

I chose a solid flat tappet cam with tool steel lifters for my latest Hemi build. The budget was not the first concern, I wanted the following in order: Reliability, Longevity, Power, and Low maintenance. Yes, periodic valve adjustments will be the downside, but that's a thing you only need to do every 5,000 miles or so and realistically It would probably take me several years to put that many miles on the car.

I only have the one Hydraulic roller 440 stroked to 505". In my setup the cost was maybe a bit more for the hydraulic roller lifters than the solid roller lifters, but the valve springs/retainers were less expensive, so I don't think there is much difference in cost?
I though the hydraulic would be quieter, but I can't tell much difference in sound between it and the mild solid roller 505 we just built.
I have the hydraulic roller engine rev-limited to 6,000 RPM, so I don't know how much higher it could rev? The solid roller has no rev-limiter and stiffer valve springs, so it should be able to rev-higher (although both are mild cams making power below 6,000 RPM.) These are both using traditional style valve springs. With conical or taper valve springs, and the hydraulic roller you should be able to extend the RPM range of the hydraulic cam if needed?
For valve train adjustments, I just gave the Hydraulic Roller 0.040" pre-load and really no need to check it unless doing something else where removing the valve cover.
On my old 451" stroker with a mild "street" solid roller cam, I would check valve lash once a year, and it never needed any adjustments. It is good to check once in awhile just in case something is starting to go bad.
The bronze oil pump drive gear did get worn pretty good after about 10,000+ miles on that engine.
On the bracket race 400 to 500" stroker with the 0.726" lift solid roller cam, the lash and valve train are check much more often because of the problems I have had with the rocker stand hold downs on the Victor heads.

Anyhow, I can't say I have had any "issues" with either retro-fit roller cam setup. For street, just run a "street" lobe profile, not a "race" lobe profile cam. If RPMs are limited, the Hydraulic is maybe a better choice, but the valve spring selection more critical than with a solid roller cam.

Fourgear what brand cam and lifters did you go with? When was this? How is the durability so far?

I went with a Howard's solid flat cam with EDM lifters 260*/ 264* 616/620 108 lobe sep. 104 C/L I will be lighting it up tomorrow or Thursday so I will let you know in a few days how it runs. Still gotta break it in then put my inner springs back in and let it eat.
Stay tuned I guess

Gus

My car has had a solid roller in it since 2003. I did a top-end on it a few years back and the solid roller lifters (comp) were fine.

Mechanical rollers on the street all depend on the valve spring rates. My cam comes out to: .552" with a 1.5 ratio rocker and about .250 @ 50 degrees for duration. Overlap is 111 or 112 degrees. This cam would be considered a "street" roller.

I have had engine builders tell me that mechanical roller motors simply make more power on their dyno's.

I also run a solid flat tappet in my street/strip car. I adjust the valves once a year and most of the time they are not out or are very close. I also wanted reliability and low maintenance and did not want to deal with the spring pressure of a good solid roller. Ron

You know, I get the impression that many folks are against solid rollers for the street because of the spring pressure, but the reality is, just like hydraulic roller, you can get solid rollers custom ground with street friendly lobes that do not require over the top spring pressures. I started this post with the hope of learning some hard facts, pro's/cons about the subject, from folks with experience in both types. When you get unsubstantiated statements like "Never run a solid roller on the street", that contributes absolutely nothing to help folks learn why you think that way. This is not meant to be critical of some posters, but the question was posed to try to gather some facts, and I am sure that I am not the only one that is wanting more info on the subject.
Let me throw this out, I have been told by knowlegeable engine builders, that solid rollers used on the street should not be subjected to extended idleing as they do not get enough oil splash feed on them, a problem that hydraulic rollers do not have. This makes sense to me and I had never thought about that. After running my roller for about six years, I decided to send the lifters back to Isky, to have them checked out/ rebuilt. I talked to one of their Tech guys about converting to the bushed roller from the needle bearings and he told me that it was way overkill for my build, but that one advantage would be that they are much less critical on the amount of splash feed needed to keep them properly lubed in a steet scenario. It cost me $400 for the upgrade, but I figured it was worth it from a long term reliability standpoint. He also added that I would probably never need them rebuilt, based on the cam/spring specs that I have. Now, I don't plan on any extended idling, but I have been caught in bad traffic on a cruise before the upgrade and would put it in neutral and raise the rpm up to 2400 for 10 seconds or so every few minutes to get some oil splash on the lifters, now, I won't worry about it as much as I did. That is one of the Cons that I know of for running a solid roller over a hydraulic on the street. Anybody got some others?

Personally I would have a solid roller in my car if I thought the added expense of the pressure feed and or bushed roller wheel made that much more horsepower per dollar. I have a limited budget for my car and I have other places to spend $1100 dollars instead of a set of lifters that MIGHT gain me a few horsepower. The bushed roller is a safer option on the street because it will at least warn you when it fails and wont send needles through your engine. Trust me Lee I thought long and hard about dropping my credit card down on a roller valvetrain VS a new solid cam and liters. The entire roller deal would cost me just under $2000 with some careful shopping and that is just not in my budget for the benefits it provides. I really don't look forward to pulling my rockers back off and re-installing my inner spring then putting everything back together and re-lashing my valves then draining the expensive break-in oil out after a few days of running.

Gus

""that solid rollers used on the street should not be subjected to extended idleing as they do not get enough oil splash feed on them""

Is this why I have read that the solid rollers need to idle at a higher rpm than the hydraulics?

As I stated I run a solid flat tappet in my street car. But that said there are many who run solid rollers in street cars. Myself the kind of roller cam I wanted to run called for a lot of spring pressure and I did not want to worry about changing springs more often or worry about a roller lifter coming apart. I have heard you should pull solid roller lifters out of the eng every 3000 to 5000 miles and check them and replace or rebuild if needed. I don't know if most guys running solid rollers do this. I was also told that if you don't run enough spring pressure with a solid roller you could run into valve float which is a no no as that can hurt a roller lifter as it may hammer some in valve float which is not good for the roller bearing. So I went with a solid flat tappet and I am very happy with it as its been 8 years now in my car and it still runs the same 10.70's and 10.80's driven to the track. But as I said many people do run solid rollers on the street and I would be curious as to how often they check the roller lifters since I know a few of my friends have run solid rollers in street cars ? Ron

With pressure feed lifters you don't need to worry about oiling at idle but the "good" setup is expensive though
Here is a good link https://www.dragzine.com/tech-stori...ery-out-of-bushing-style-roller-lifters/
Gus

Now we are getting into the discussion that I asked for. Gus, it is not meant to be a discussion about cost, as we all know they are expensive, it is about the pluses or minuses of each, what drawbacks they may have. Lots of responses wandered off into FT solids, but that is not what this topic is about and it would be nice to stay on point and help each other learn something,
Ron, you are correct about loss of valve control at high revs being hard on the roller, but I would guess that a solid FT experiencing the same issue would get damaged to some degree also, I think needle bearing rollers may well be more susceptible to this condition, but I suspect it a'int doing a FT any good either. I remember when Schubeck came out with their ceramic faced solid tappet, they warned about this issue as the ceramic disc could shatter from impact. I think most people instinctively react like solid rollers are all pro-stock grinds that need springs from hell to control, but we all know that that is no longer true. I have a good friend that has a wheelstanding 71 493 corvette/auto/336 gears that runs mid-tens and is such a sleeper(all motor) and he drives it on power tour cross country with zero problems. His engine is built by a well known builder in Colorado that sciences these BB combo's out, he even uses factory iron oval port heads that he ports and a hydraulic roller cams with just enough spring for control , but not too much so as to rob horsepower. The car runs phenomelly well but he has had to change springs every year and finally this year, he and the builder decided to run solid rollers on that cam to get more revs out of it. it was rpm limited to 6100 So, many hydraulic rollers are mild enough for the street, but you can also switch them out to solid roller tappets and still not need excessively high spring pressure. We will see how much of an improvement it makes.
Thanks for the link, good info. The next article on o2 sensors was a good one also.

My brother has a solid roller in a low 11 second car. Not a daily driver, but it is driven to the local car shows and the track. He checks the lash once a year and finds that it hardly changes if at all. I think the whole having to check the lash all the time on any solid cam stems from Chevy guys using wore the hell out rocker arm hardware, or the studs on their heads pulling out at high rpms.

As you are seeing the are many different opinions on solid roller cams and lifters on the street, I have built more than one street engine with solid roller cams and good quality lifters with no come backs.
As far as lubing them the normal OEM stock B, RB and 426 hemi blocks lifter bores have at least .002 or more lifter bore to lifter on all the blocks I've checked
Most of the better quality new lifters have the .820 or larger roller wheels and some of them have pressure oiling to the wheels with much better quality parts in them, unlike the older smaller lifters that would not stand up on the street as well as the newer one do
I ended up using a set of Crower solid lifters in my last pump gas motor after having two Mopar brand lifters break the wheels in two parts
I put over 3500 miles on the street and hundreds of runs at the track shifting at or above 7000 RPM with no issues at all with the better Crower lifters before trading that car off
On your deal buy a good set of solid lifters, not the cheaper ones and go for it

If you want facts, I would talk to engine builders who have been in business for a long time.

I have talked to two engine builders that have each been in business for over 30 years (one in Cali who built my engine and one in Denver). Both of them said they have never had a solid roller lifter come apart. They build both race and street engines that use solid roller cams. Both said mechanical rollers make more power.

As for issues with idling, I have my idle set to 1200 rpm. At that rpm, I have 40lb of oil pressure hot. That is a lot of oil slinging around in there. I did not see any discoloration on the lobes or lifters when I pulled the intake (and heads) off of my engine. I think the lack of oil splash on the lifters at idle is over blown.

I check lash every other year or so and, like most of you, they are never way off. Almost feels like a waste of time.

Since i don't have an engine dyno, I can't tell you what the difference in power would be if I swapped out my solid rollers (SR) with hydraulic rollers (HR). I think my cam is mild enough that I could do that. But, what does a HR do? It absorbs some of the lift and duration. So while my engine might have more bottom end with the HR, I would expect to lose top end power. How much? I don't know. Also, everything that I have read tells me an engine using hydraulic lifters (roller or flat tappet) are done by 6200 rpm. If you are building a street engine and your parts selection is designed to make power to 6-6200 tops, then a hydraulic cam may be the way to go. All depends on your application (rpm range, power level, weight of car, budget, etc). Me personally, I would still go with the mechanical roller because I have been told they simply make more power and they really don't require much maintenance.

As for price, hydraulic roller cams and lifters aren't exactly cheap. I doubt there is much of a difference between a street grind mechanical roller and a similarly ground hydraulic roller.

Finally, I like mechanicals because of their tunability. If I want to fatten up the bottom end or change the sound of the idle, I can do that by adjusting valve lash. If I need more engine vacuum, again, I can change the lash to help with engine vacuum. With a hydraulic, you can't do any of that.

At some point you'll just need to make a decision. You will get endless arguements on both sides.

Couple of observations:

1) very rarely do people do a true root cause for failures. Even "professionals" are often speculating.
2) people have collectively run millions of miles on non-pressurized, needle bearing roller lifters w/out failure.

Folks (today) talk about how the bushed roller is better, and the need for positive pressure oiling, and idling just kills them. Sounds good. Where's the data, and analysis?

I love the opinions of professionals. They a immensely valuable contributors here and on other sites. But remember, when they are making recommendations to you, the last thing they want is for you to come through the door with a problem. There is almost no up side for them to tell a customer that they should run a solid roller cam. In fact, it would be silly to do so, IMO.

Here is what I believe to be true to a long happy experience with a solid roller:
1) pick a sensible street type solid roller. If it cannot live with 200 on the seat, and 500 over the nose, its not sensible.
2) buy a good needle bearing roller lifter. If you want to add insurance and $, bush it with direct oiling (just remember, there is a consequence with sending more oil everywhere).
3) lash them tighter than looser, all within reason.

This is what I did. And my idle oil pressure is 15 psi. Lots of idle time and low rpm operation, and my valve train is well behaved even at 6800. Thousands of mile. Lifters are fine.

Is it zero risk, of course not. Is it right for a daily driver that you want to get 100,000 without opening the hood, no. Right parts, good parts, reasonable care, reasonable expectations.

All that said, is the cost worth the HP increase to you?

All day long... My limited experience is with solid rollers in the race car. Mild, around 300 adv. dur. and .660 lift. I have experience with some cams on big engines with over 1" of lift but I had nothing to do with installation and the like. Only checking and making adjustments. Spiegel was breaking valve springs on a 5" bore 669" deal. He had to mellow the cam slightly to have 25-50 run reliability. About the same R&R schedule as tires for the top ten in the world. I threw some race car parts on a 400 along with the cam into a Dart Sport. It doesn't make a ton of power but runs really good. Idling under 1,000 rpm with it is probably not the best thing so I don't do it. 11 or 12 is fine and sounds great providing enough vac. to the carb. I couldn't see having a cam that won't go to 8,000 rpm. I don't run it up there but I sure like the pull from 6-7000! The Challenger never goes under 6,100 from the time you let go of the button unless on the throttle stop. It's usually between 7,200 and 7,600 at the stripe where it is put in neutral and shut down every time. I have 4 sets of Comp 829 lifters that are, at least once a season, being rotated and sent back. When they are not rebuildable Comp will replace those with new ones. For basically $150. It's only been more when I had to replace a couple. I broke one tie bar in 2013 after I bought the car back and it had been flogged with no lifter maintenance for two years by the temp. owner. I have replaced the oil/dist. gear 3 times in about 1,500 runs. I don't know how it got that many as 300 seemed to be the limit for it. Bad log booking I guess??? Solid rollers are gas hogs to no end. Even with the street car and a 750HP carb. It uses about 5 gallons to go 20 miles at 45mph and above. Very hard to keep my foot out of it for any amount of time with a converter that's just stupid for the street. I don't beat on it ultra hard though. It's only seen 7,000rpm a couple times. It pulls really good past 4,200. IMO if it's any kind of hot rod, solid roller all the way.

I run a Howards hydraulic roller in my 505. I like the quiet compared to a solid. Sounds and looks mild.

Drop in fit and zero issues with 5700 miles and hundreds of dragstrip passes. I limit mine to 6400 rpm.

It does what I need it to do without being high maintenance.

Runs low 11's n/a at 3,600 lbs.