Hydraulic Lifter Camshaft Vs. Solid Lifter Cam

[wsa111]

Has anyone gone to solid lifters & has a comparision between the two?

With a solid lifter camshaft you can rev it past 6000 rpms & will not have lifters pump up.

Also you can get over .500" lift very easy with the solid lifters.

I know comp cams & several other manufacturers offer a solid lifter with a .012" oil hole in the center of the lifter contact area for extra lubrication to prevent wiped camshaft lobes.

Nitriding hardness is also an option offered by several camshaft grinders to combat wear.

I have been using nitrided distributor gears with great success.
The hardened gear in my engine is still not wearing even with a scored camshaft gear caused by possibly a melling oil pump with internal scoring & too much oil pressure & from soft aftermarket distributor gears.

My next engine will have a solid lifter camshaft for the extra performance available at higher engine speeds. Bill

 

[66 Fastback]

My '61 Vette has a solid lifter 283 V-8 in it. It is an old chevy cam that was radical for its day. Power band is 3500 to 6500 and it revs happily to 6500 rpm. It is a bit doggy until 3500 rpm. But you are probably looking for experience with a more modern cam with higher lift and more specifically solid lifters in an inline.
Doug

 

[rbohm]

8) the only advantage to using a solid lifter cam is the slightly higher rpm range, and even that is quite narrow these days. i prefer using a solid lifter cam only in race engines where that extra 100 rpm might mean the difference between winning and losing. for just about everything else i use a hydraulic cam for minimum maintenance.

 

[wsa111]

Rich, yes the set it & forget it using the hydraulic lifters is a nice feature.

However for the experienced tuner, one can vary the valve lash for more or less duration. If the cam is set at .018" on the intake & you want more low end, just set the intake lash at .020" & that will shorten the intake duration. Same deal with the exhaust clearance.

The main thing about solids is that the clearance in critical.
If you are not willing to set the valve, you would be better off with a hydraulic camshaft. Bill

 

[rbohm]

8) good point on changing valve lash for tuning, and i have done that on race engines. but you can kind of do that with hydraulic lifters also, you just dont set the preload as heavy. granted the difference is slight though.