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Roller or flat tappet.

801 Views 2 Replies 3 Participants Last post by  GRN69CHV
Hi Guy's yeah i know you have probably answered this before but i am a fan of flat tappets especially solids, but you can't beat progress so i am considering a solid roller for my 496 bb with AFR 315's victor manifold etc, but from reading a few of the threads relating to roller maintenance i tend to think is it worth pounding out lifters amongst other valve train components (especially when using big solid rollers .700 lift 260-270 dur @50) when you can run solid f/t successfully year after year as i have, for example my friends 502 which has a crane f/t .659/.679 lift 272/280 [email protected] .050 & made 612hp & 608ft lb in which is basically a crate cast iron headed 502 with some port work, victor, 1000hp holley, etc etc .
So getting back to my original question can solid rollers be maintenance free to an extent or is it to be expected to replace such items as lifters every 15000 miles as evident from all the second hand lifters on ebay. If it means spending big bucks initially then so be it. Sorry guy's for such a long thread but i need some convincing. Thanks Mick (Down under).
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Contact the cam manufacturer you like for specifics, but most of the high end solid flat tappets are made from a different core, not regular cast or ductile iron. Key is how hard you want to run it and how much lift you want. You will not get the equivalent lift for a given duration in a flat tappet. But, no reason to go to a roller unless you want the added lift. Your AFR's are supposed to like a lot of lift. JMHO, but in the application you are looking at, it's only a few hundred dollars difference to got to a solid roller as compared to a high end solid.
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