I ordered my Sportsman II heads the other day and now I need a cam shaft. In my quest to find a good cam for my new smallblock 355, I called Chet Herbert Perfomance this morning and had a great talk with John, there tech guy. Comp cams told me 3 different cams from 3 different tech guys, what the????. Anyways I have been throwing around the idea of a solid roller been have been pretty much talked out of it for the street. And I have heard alot of people say dont use a hydraulic roller because they are heavy and dont rev high and you will see valve float early. Is this true???

Well after speaking with John at Chet Herbert Performance in California. He has seen alot of solid roller lifters wiped out due to idling in traffic at fair grounds and shows beacuse the rollers get oiled by accident and the seat pressure is real high on these cams. He has a hydraulic roller good for 2800-6500 rpms, 243 @.050 and 110 lobes seperation. .558 lift w/1.5 rockers and .595 w/ 1.6 rockers. $500 for the package but I will need different push rods.

What do you think about hydraulic rollers and this setup? I will have a Coan 3000 stall and 4:10 gears.

Thanks, Erik

Eric68, I value your opinion and I hope chime in on this one.

Eric , Email this Guy with what you have for a combo , Also ask him about solid versus Hydrolic .His name is Steve Slavic .His Email address is steveslavik@holley.com .
Mark .

Read my post on the "bee hive" springs, they helped my 383 go from
6100rpm to 6600rpm with a Comp hyd. roller - they are great on street cars,
thats all I use.

What is the seat duration and lift? Nothing wrong with a hydraulic roller (they run good) but in the past there have been issues with valve float at lower RPM. Have heard good things about the new behive springs and a rev kit will help pick up some RPM too. The behive springs and rev kit will add some $ to your cost though.

243* @ 050 will want to rev well past 6000 RPM in a 355 so even though they're saying its $500 for the kit you will need to invest in some behive springs and a rev kit to take full advantrage of the grind.

Just my opinion.

6500 is n/p with the AFR rev kit. I know 350s that go 7K

Even solid rollers that are in the 130lb seat range will fail on the street eventually (unless you run a big gear and keep it close to 3000 most the time). They just are not getting enough lube in the 2000-2500 range.

make your decision based on what your going to do with the car, but if you want to rev it, and have much of a stall converter and gears (which you do), how much of the time are you really going to be below 2000 rpms? i have nothing against hy-rollers, but they notoriously dont like to really spin (like 6500 up) a healthy 355 can do 7k+ without breaking a sweat. but, maybe its mostly a cruiser, i dunno.
with that said, i'm a solid roller guy all the way, but i dont build cruisers and show cars either. i'm going on 4 years of street driving/racing my solid roller 406, and it has given zero problems (yes, i just jinxed myself now). i check the valvetrain when the intake is off etc., and i'm just not worried. i have buddies that have gone several years on solid roller setups. the key is buy the best parts you can afford. the only thing that does wear out more often are springs, but after 4 years mine are still just fine. and seat pressure doesn't thrash parts, but light springs that float the valves like crazy do.
well, just another veiwpoint, from the "solid roller camp" graemlins/beers.gif

I really just want a good running cruiser and when I do go the track for Super Chevy or Goodguys or whatever. I want to run low 12's and be streetable. I see people doing this all the time but am not really sure what they are running. I cruise at 55 at 3000 rpms and really dont plan on running it past 6000rpms. I think I did mess up though, the sportman II heads I bought are going to need alot of work and the guy I want to do them correctly, meaning a full CNC raceport job says $750 for the port work. I trust him all the way but for the money I should of bought a set Trickflows or something that already out flow these. If I have to get these ported then I already have my answer, I wont be able to afford the roller setup so I will have to stick with a flat tappet cam.

Man all these decisions are freakin killing me!!!!!! I could sell the new Sportsmans for $800 and be fine to get the Trickflows. I trust Eric68 and should have listened to him in the first place.

Thanks, Erik

well, then i'd suggest going with just a solid flat tappet cam. it will give you everything your looking for, without the cost. don't believe all the bs about needing to always adjust solid cams either, if your valvetrain is all right you really shouldn't have to readjust the lash.
as for the heads, port work can be expensive. but in reality, why worry about porting your heads a bunch, when imo, they should need minimal porting if any to achieve your goal of 12's.
just my opinion, fwiw

Well thanks for the compliment Erik, but don't be so hard on yourself . . . there is more than one way to skin a cat and the Sportsman IIs are perfectly good heads out of the box. Not sure what you meant by they need a lot of work -- hope there is nothing wrong with them . . .

Like 68rs406 said you really don't need a lot of fancy port work to go 12's, maybe do a little cleanup work yourself if you are up to it.

I'm still in the experiment stage of my street roller swap but so far it is holding up well on the street. I logged over 1,500 miles on it this summer and about 8 hours of idling this weekend at the Woodward Dream cruise. Yeahh Baby !!! will be checking lash later today to make sure, but the motor was still purring like a kitten when pulled it into the garage an hour ago. I think the HPPO system is THE way to go if you are looking to run a street roller.

Anyway sorry to ramble . . . just go with a solid FT if the budget is tight. A street roller setup is only worth a couple tenths over the right solid FT cam anyway.

Hey Eric68, why did you pick the Trickflows over AFRs or Dart Pro 1's? I live five miles from a Jegs store and they are trying to talk me into a set of Dart Pro 1's with a complete roller setup and they want $639 a head for them. I was curious. I havent made my mind up yet. Trickflow has a complete roller setup in the Summit Racing catalog, heads, cam, lifters, the right springs and timing chain for $1600. This doenst seem to bad of a price. Did the Trickflows really need any clean up work or anything? I just downloaded an article from Westech Performance and they show out of a sets of heads the trick flows did real good and the Sportsman's did the worst. The trickflows flowed 45 cc more on the exhasut side then the Sportsman. I have to have $1500 in a set of cast iron heads that just flow where the trickflows do from the factory.

Thanks, Erik

Dart Pro 1's IMO need porting out of the box. I looked at a set along side Pro Toplines and there was no comparison -- lots of extra material in the Pro 1's (especially around the valve guide boss) and the Pros needed to be cleaned up. Don't get me wrong, they looked like a good casting, they just had lots of extra material inside the port.

Why not AFR's?? $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ when I bought my TFS heads 3-1/2 years ago they were only $850 a pair and the AFRs were $1300 plus milling to get them down to 64cc chambers.

Also, 3.5 years ago the ProToplines were relatively unknown. They are also a good option if you are on a budget.

Watch advertised flow numbers. I personally think that the flow numbers for the Pro 1s are optimistic after looking at the ports if you leave them untouched. The ProToplines we looked at (and bought for a friend's car) were beautiful and needed NOTHING out of the box although there have been some others that have said that the QC is a little inconsistent with Pro Topline.

The Trickflows didn't really NEED to be cleaned up but there were a couple little ridges in mine in the bowl where the seat was pressed into the aluminum casting. Nothing that would hurt flow significantly, but it was something that takes only minutes to take care of with a Dremel and helped pick up some low/mid-lift flow.

I personally prefer to buy heads bare and either put my own parts in them OR take them apart and inspect/cleanup prior to installation. In the case of Trick Flow, they come with very good parts (Ferria valves) so I would buy them complete and inspect as long as you can get the right valvesprings for your cam. In the case of ProTopline I would buy them bare OVER THE COUNTER and look the bare casting over real good prior to purchase then buy my own parts.

Another advantage of buying heads bare is if you put a street roller setup in you can get the right springs for your cam. Spring requirements for Roller cams can vary a LOT. A street roller cam will generally use much lighter springs than your typical race roller cam but still heavier than your typical hydraulic roller spring. If you get heads with generic "solid roller springs" already installed chances are they will be too stiff for your cam -- which in turn is harder on your lifters and rockers.

Originally posted by Erik Beckett:
I ordered my Sportsman II heads the other day and now I need a cam shaft. In my quest to find a good cam for my new smallblock 355, I called Chet Herbert Perfomance this morning and had a great talk with John, there tech guy. Comp cams told me 3 different cams from 3 different tech guys, what the????. Anyways I have been throwing around the idea of a solid roller been have been pretty much talked out of it for the street. And I have heard alot of people say dont use a hydraulic roller because they are heavy and dont rev high and you will see valve float early. Is this true???

Well after speaking with John at Chet Herbert Performance in California. He has seen alot of solid roller lifters wiped out due to idling in traffic at fair grounds and shows beacuse the rollers get oiled by accident and the seat pressure is real high on these cams. He has a hydraulic roller good for 2800-6500 rpms, 243 @.050 and 110 lobes seperation. .558 lift w/1.5 rockers and .595 w/ 1.6 rockers. $500 for the package but I will need different push rods.

What do you think about hydraulic rollers and this setup? I will have a Coan 3000 stall and 4:10 gears.

Thanks, Erik

Eric68, I value your opinion and I hope chime in on this one. The LS1 guys are getting 450RWHP out of hyraulic rollers in 5.7L engines. Those cams are on the ragged edge of streetability with EFI. So my advice would be to go with the solid roller. Look for something with fast ramps, these keep the manifold vacuum up.
Check out cammotion.com they make some killer grinds.

ditto on what eric said about the heads, buy bare and assemble them for your combo.
and ditto on the toplines, many of you have seen my posts raving about them, they worked killer out of the box for me. they do have little quirks, but nothing big, and hell, everything aftermarket has quirks imo. and there are a couple local smallblock head gurus that have also said the pro 1's are good heads, but can't hang with most heads without port work, this was certainly true with my pro action's compared to my buddys pro 1's, my heads smoked his across the board, and at peak, on the same flow bench.
but having said that, your heads are still good heads (as long as something isn't wrong with them?), and are VERY capable of 12's with a clean up and port match. remember, a hogged out set of "race" heads that flow killer #'s at .650+ lift will probably just have poor velocity and kill low speed torque in a motor with less than .550 lift, and a cam that just isn't designed to spin.
i wouldn't be so hard on those heads, they are a good middle of the road head out of the box, imo, and can be made to work great on a higher horsepower motor if need be. just match your parts wisely graemlins/beers.gif

68rs406, Thats the problem, my roller cam I will buy will be around 550 lift with a 236/242 @ 050. So I dont think I want these heads hogged out to full race port. I know there is something on the exhaust side that you have to watch out for with small exhaust chambers like the Soportsman II's. I think it has to do with overlap and duration of tha cam. I am not sure, as I am learning everyday and I still get terms mixed up. I just dont know what to do. I called Bill Mitchell today and they said that the cast these heads with room for the engine builder to port to what dimensions they need, thats why the low price as well. I am really digging the Trickflows but should I buy them set up for a roller or buy the cheapest and the spring kit from Comp cams?

Lots of learning to do, can some recommend a good book to read, as far as building a first engine and tolerences and cam shaft installation.

Thanks, Erik

Originally posted by Erik Beckett:
I am really digging the Trickflows but should I buy them set up for a roller or buy the cheapest and the spring kit from Comp cams?

Get them with the correct diameter springs for your application roller, solid FT, etc. Then if you have to swap springs the retainers, locks and cups should fit.

Lots of learning to do, can some recommend a good book to read, as far as building a first engine and tolerences and cam shaft installation.

It's as old as the hills, but I always liked HP Books, "How to hotrod your small block Chevy"

Thanks, Erik