Been collecting parts together for my motor and about to send my 781 heads out to Mike Stark for work and need to determine required valve springs. Motor is a 454 .030 over. 10:1. 750-850 carb; dual plance alum intake etc. going into a 66 chevelle with TH400 and 3.73's. Non daily driver, primarily street, occasional track use.

So I was all set going with the recomendation from UdHarold on using the Lunati 60204 as I told him I only have expereince with hydraulic flat tappets. Now Im second guessing myself that I should go with a hydraulic roller because from reading this board you would swear almost half of the flat tappets installed over the past 3-5 years have failed...even when all break-in assembly was done correctly.

So I need to decode and stay firm. I need some excpereinced opinion and input. Here are the cam specs for each cam:

Lunati VooDoo 60204 hydraulic flat tappet: Adv dur 276/284; Dur @ .050 233/241; lift .554/.572; 110 LSA

Lunati VooDoo 60212 hydraulic roller: Adv Dur 282/290 @ .006; Dur @ .050 231/239; .600/600 lift; 110 LSA

Both cams call fro 2800-3200 stall, 3.50-3.73 rear gears and 10:1. Essentially is a matter of preference, perfomance and cost.

Questions I have is:

How much will the roller cam out-perfrom the flat tappet?
Does the cost of about $600 more justify that performance gain?
And most importantly what are the chances of a cam failure on the flat tappet?

Thanks in advacne for any input.

Though not as much i have also seen roller cams/lifters failing here in t/c too,its not just flat tappet cams that can experience failures.

But the flat tappet cams are more sensitive to proper install,prelube,breakin ,and running oil with ZDDP then roller cams are,thats for sure.

Scott

I'd stay with Harold's recommendation.
Use GM EOS (engine oil supplement) for the zinc that's left out of current oil for the break in and you should be fine.

stay with the '04
you don'y hear the success stories as often ass the failures,but there out there!
I for one!! 60203 no probs.

I am going with the 60204 on my future 468, my builder sure believes in this cam. He has one in his laguna and loves it. As long as broken in properly, everyone I have spoken to about it said it was perfect for a 454 performance street application.

Tell the builder to pay some attention to the lifter bores ( I hit them quick with a brake type hone) and break the cam in with the outer spring only.

Yeah, yeah its a PITA to swap the inners back in on the motor, but it inst bad at $600 for an hours worth of work. I drove on outers for a bit, maybe two weeks of cruise nights, while breaking in a new clutch as well. Harold said 30 minutes was fine, but this block had eaten a cam before,a few weeks after initial run in, so I was trying to minimize the probabilities.

5K on motor. So far , so good.

success story...

voodoo 60201, no problems.

My Beaumont has a Comp 280H flat tappet hydraulic cam. So far no problems. But it is a very low lift cam at only 0.520 and not much spring pressure. Seems to me the hi perf chevy big block cams were also around 0.520 lift. The lifter bores were also grooved.

It is for sure a risk to go flat tappet with higher lift and spring pressures.

All you need is one cam lobe failure and a bunch of metal circulating around to make the hydraulic roller look pretty good.

I can speak for the 60212, as I run it (actually, its the 60622 - the Gen6 version).

I noticed yesterday while driving, that this is a very tame cam in my 454. Idles at 750-800rpms, and pulls 11"-12" of vacuum. My motor idles nice and doesnt shake the whole car. In fact, the idle is about the same as my original cam which was a 211/230 HR from GM. Surprisingly, little/almost no loss of low-end torque, and plenty of top-end, and this is with 3.31's and no converter! A little noisy, and make sure your pistons have adequate valve reliefs cause I had some issues.

The $600 difference is not worth the price IMHO.Stick with f/t hydraulic
The original f/t version of that cam,the Ultradayne 288/296 (231/239 .550/.575 110 LSA) has gone mid 11's @ 115 MPH with 3.73 gears in a 10 to 1 468..and this is just more than one persons success story.

I too have wiped a couple BB cams on breakin until I found out about the Zinc in oil thing.My last breakin went well with Delo 400 30 wt. and crane breakin lube and inner springs removed on a Lunati solid flat tappet cam.Have been using shell rotella t oil since.I would stick with the 04 cam myself.JMHO Tony

I'm not sure what the difference in HP would be between the 2, but if its worth 20-30hp would you consider that a good deal? I would.

Another interesting topic would be the HP difference between FT and HR cams with as similar specs as possible.

Just something to throw out there - take it for what its worth:

I had Joe (GRN69CHV) do a DD run for me w/my current combo in my sig w/the 60212, then ran it with the Ultradayne 288/296 (231/239 .550/.575 110 LSA). Here's the results:

Base w/ roller 541HP @ 5500, 552 TQ@ 4500, motor hits 500 TQ (503) at 3000.

W/ flat tappet hyd 480HP @ 5500, 501 TQ @ 4500.

So DD is showing 60+HP and 50+ ftlbs. Seems high but Joe has the DD thing dialed in pretty good and always seems to get close to people's actual #'s. And, UD Harold states that the DD software doesn't really have an input for cam intensity/agressiveness(??) so the #'s may be even more in the real world.

Good stuff!!!

Fwiw, I ALWAYS "finger" ALL of my lifter bores w/ oil and make sure each lifter spins in it's bore!!

Be careful doing this b/c it's sharp down in there and you can bark a fingertip real easy!!

pdq67

Fwiw, I ALWAYS "finger" ALL of my lifter bores w/ oil and make sure each lifter spins in it's bore!!

Be careful doing this b/c it's sharp down in there and you can bark a fingertip real easy!!

pdq67
:hurray::hurray::D:D:noway::noway::p:p
i wont even go there.