I recently saw a topic on solid lifters and hydrolic cams. I didn't have time to reply with my questions. I was playing with my "pac man dyno" (as Wolfplace calls it) and found a 30hp increase with solid lifters and 1.6 rockers and got to thinking... are there differant materials in the two cams? would I see any significant improvement in my setup by switching to solid lifters? how to you set the lash? do you need special rockers?

I'm not sure if you can run solids on your particular cam. But, usually when solids are run on a hydraulic cam they are lashed down really tight, close to zero lash. While on a cam designed to used solid lifters will have twice to three times as much lash.

You set the lash with feeler guages. The lash will depend on the particular cam you're working on. But you set the lash a lot like on a hydraulic, except instead of taking all the lash out (zero lash), you tighten it down to a spec, say .006". So you put a .006" feeler between the rocker and the valve tip and tighten it down until you get a slight drag when pulling out the feeler. (There are better ways to get lash closer to spec, but you get the idea.)

Unless you're running Vortec heads, I don't see any reason for different rockers, unless you want to put 1.6s on. I've heard to put 1.6s only on the intake side.

You will probably need different pushrods tho, I'm pretty sure they're different lengths for hydraulic and solid lifters.

I don't know if you'll see as much increase as DD2k says, but maybe some power will show up from the fact that solid lifters are lighter weight than their oil-filled hyd counterparts.

At this point, I'll step aside and let the more experienced guys advise you.

Originally posted by Slowpoke70:
You will probably need different pushrods tho, I'm pretty sure they're different lengths for hydraulic and solid lifters.The pushrods are the same for a small block solid or Hyd,just make sure your rocker is riding in the center of the valve stem.
-Steve

And if you simply throw solids on a hyd cam, you might not get anything near 30 hp depending on the grind. Change cams to a solid profile or forget about it.

Tonawandakid, I'm pretty sure I remember CJ Landry stating that he had to change pushrod length when he switched from a hydraulic flat tappet to a solid flat tappet.

The lifters are the same height. IIRC, Chad did a cam change and the base circle was probably different, requiring a pushrod change.

Originally posted by Slowpoke70:
I've heard to put 1.6s only on the intake side.
why wouldn't you put the 1.6s on all of the studs while your at it?

I think Pat could answer your question better, but:

From what I've read, for whatever reason, putting 1.6s on the intake side tends to produce more power than putting them on the exhaust side also.

Putting them all round will likely still make more power than 1.5s all around, but for whatever reason, half/half seems to work the best.