I'm planning a roller swap for my 454.
I'm not sure if a stud girdle is necessary for my cam. It adds a lot of expense if I do.
The spec's are:
.630 gross lift 220# seat 540# nose 6500rpm max guesstimate

Can you run a girdle and the valve covers still clear the stock brake booster?

IF YOU ARE RUNNING IRON HEADS YOU SHOULD BE OK WITHOUT GIRDLE, ALUM HEADS A GOOD IDEA, DON'T THINK YOU WILL GET VALVE COVERS OFF THE SHELF THAT I KNOW OF TO CLEAR BOOSTER AND GIRDLE, ROB..

I have a 1969 EC with a 427 in it.I have iron heads , tall alum valve covers and a girdle and they clear the booster on mine.It requires a little twisting to R/R the valve cover but no real problem.

With that cam, spring pressure & iron heads, you don't need a stud girdle. There a pain IMO and I'm glad I took mine off. I run a .660" lift roller with 200 lbs seat pressure and 550 lbs open...shift at 6800 rpm and run throught the traps at 7200 rpm.

Just be sure to use the good ARP rocker studs...I used their Pro series.

I am running the same cam as 10secBu (at least lift wise) XR292R Comp Cam. I am also runnig Dart 310cc Aluminum Heads, I am not running a stud girdle and I have not had any problems. The springs are 205# seat and 550# @ .666" lift.

Don't need it. I run the Same XR292R cam as Mike and very close spring rates too and my max is 5999.9 RPM. I hate those girdles, Pain in the ARSE.

If you have stock GM Aluminum heads it would be a good idea though.

RPM wise I have spun mine to 7500 with no problems

Thanks guys, it's reassuring to see people with more cam and rpm not running them. And not having problems.

I wasn't looking foward to figuring out the pre and post girdle tightning lash numbers.

One thing nice about them, if you do bust a rocker stud, it holds it together and most of the time... if you here it and cut it off in a reasonable amount of time... it will eliminate the really bad things that can happen with a broken stud! :cool:

Girdle helped me from loosing some parts on mine when I had a lock nut that pulled the threads out of it. Everything was all together, just got noiser - luckily we heard it in the staging lanes... Switched to all ARP stuff after that LOL

Yep, I leave mine on the bb as a precaution to
keep parts in place.No other benefit on the iron heads.