Hey, is there any chevy or pontiac engines out there that used hyd. roller lifters? in size .842?

I'm trying to find some cheap alternatives to buying compcams roller lifter rip-offs! They want $600.00!!! They are insane!

All I would need to do would be drill three holes in the oil galley above the cam to use a spider(retainer) to hold the link bars in place. But I need to find out if chevy or any other GM engine used roller lifters other than oldsmobile.

Thanks.

Chevy has used rollers in the Vortec motors for years, but they are .875 diameter.

it would take more machine work than that to install them just get a new block, most of the 90's blocks are roller. or get the after market kit like i am. expensive but worth it.

Ummm... this is for an olds 403 Just cant get a "new block"

But I do have an olds spider from a 87 307 that is only 2 holes. I figure drill the 2 holes, tap them and thats that.

I still need to find out what other engines used roller lifters in .842 size.

Chevy's are all .842". Fords are .875" Olds/Pontiac are .842" also but the oil band is in a different location compared to a Chevy. Now you could use a Chevy lifter in a Pontiac/Olds as long as the cam was not over .475" lift. Anymore and it will starve the engine for oil.

Your safest bet is to buy the retro hydraulic rollers. $600 is not bad, I know first hand how much money it cost to do a short run of these.

Chris

Right on, Chris.

Chris,
I don't know exactly what the difference is in the oil band as I have never played with Pontiacs. Is it possible he could machine (in a lathe) the oil band and get the Chevy lifters to work with a higher lift cam? This would be good to know for future reference.

Thanks,
Royce

Royce, they are case hardened so I wouldn't for fear of cutting through the hardening and leading to possible failure down the road.

Chris

no, no, no... no lathing or cheap *** machining like that.

Yeah I would need the oil bands to match the placement of regular hyd. lifters. If all else fails I will go with summit as they want about $450.00, but I feel this is still a rip-off and a half!

$200-300.00 I could see paying, but for lifters with a stupid link bar attached to them that looks like it might fail... I cant see paying so much money for.

This is why I can stand tapping the two holes for the spider that hold the OE links to the roller lifters, all I would need is lifters that are .842 in size and matching oil passages. If all else fails I'll just go up to my old job and raid their lifters to find out which ones will fit

I understand the point about the case hardening. It was just a thought.

Machining (cheap *****) lathing, is the way many things are made. I was only trying to offer a cheaper alternative. Buck up and buy the right lifters if you are above cheap ***** machine work. You obviously have never had to have something made or you would KNOW machine work is NOT cheap.

Royce

Oh, I know machine work is not cheap, but the money their asking for something that is mass produced is insane! I can get OE lifters for $8.99 a piece! If they cant come down in price, or provide better quality, then they arent for me.

It's already cost me an arm and a leg getting this 403 rebuilt, ask any guy who tried to rebuild an olds motor, it anit cheap! But it doesnt cost comp cams $600.00 to pay that spanish speaking dude to mass produce these things. Especially when federal is selling the same or better quality lifter sets for $145.00! I'm not blind to people or companies being greedy. I think I might have found one, federal part # 2148 I think.

As an example, summit sells chevy cams for $59.99! Comp sells the same quality for $200.00+ Give me a break! They also wanted $400.00 for an olds roller cam, I can get it from AE for $200.00, same quality.....

I'm not going to toot Comp Cams horn at all. I've had several issues with them in the past and no longer use their stuff. I will say that the extra cost of the cam is not the quality of the work. Far from it. It's the lobe profiles and the high paid engineers that design and test them. Then they have to come up with a spring with the right pressures at various lift points to match the cams. Then the cost of the engineers that design the springs.

You might ask then why are the Summit, SSI, Federal Mogul parts so cheap? The reason is that the lobe profiles they use have been around for decades so the r&d costs are no longer a factor. For instance Crane/Blue Racer, Summit, SSI, and Edelbrock all use the same cores from the same source with the same lobe profiles for a few of the budget cam kits sold.

SSI pn. 10333
Blue Racer pn. wg1112
Edelbrock pn. 3712

These three are all the same camshafts with different names on them.

SSI pn. 10334
Blue Racer pn. wg1168
Edelbrock pn. 2152
Lunati pn. 00080

These four are all the same. See what I mean?

As for the lifters. Federal cannot build and sell retrofit hyd. roller lifters for $145 a set. The market just isn't there for the mass production necessary to spread out the cost of manufacturing them. These lifters are made in small batches and require a lifter body made differently than oem style lifters. That is why they are so expensive.

I do not recommend drilling any holes in your block. If you'll take a look at a factory hyd. roller block there are machined mounting bosses raised up from the camshaft tunnel. You're block does not have these.The lifter retainer has to be very precisely placed in order to keep the lifters positioned correctly. Not to mention the accelerated wear you would get from being a few thousandths off in the alignment. Getting the material welded in place for the mounting bosses, then having them machined to match the oem bosses, getting the cam bearing bores align honed, and paying through the nose for oversized cam bearings would cost you way more than a set of retrofit lifters.

Larry

No, if I did;nt want to machine the block I could take the block up to the machine shop up here and I could probably get it done for around $200.00

The cost of the lifters is still not justified, and I'm sure the machine shop could use the money more than comp or crane.

In fact that sounds like a much better idea to me. Just might do that

"I think I might have found one, federal part # 2148 I think."

That's HT2148. It's the same lifter as the GM one.

Why not find a better way to make the extra 10 hp that a hydraulic roller cam is worth compared to a hydraulic flat tappet?It all sounds like a bunch of work for a product that doesnt really make any more power.