musman70

Hi,

Has anyone ever used roller setup (valley spider,lifters,pushrods and cam) from newer block in their old style 350.
I know that for spider installation there will be some minor machining required, but how about those factory style lifters, bores in old style block are shorter if i remember right....does this give you some risks.

What about cam, can it be used with cam button?

Of course you can always go retrofit, but it costs, and i have 2 extra sets of those factory roller setups.......

-J

Scott McDonald

I don't know about the lifter bores being shorter, but you will have to have the valley machined to accept the retainers that hold the roller lifters in place. As far as the cam button goes yes you will have to use it or the roller cam will walk forward and cause the timing gear to beat the front of the timing cover. Not good in my opinion. Also with cam buttons, you can get several different styles and lengths. I just put a roller style button in the 305 road racing engine I'm building but you can also get solid aluminum and nylon. I wouldn't use nylon because over time as it bumps the timing cover it is going to wear causing your clearance to widen between the button and the timing cover. Generally you want .005 to .010 clearance between the two. Any more than that and your timing can be affected by the movement of the cam. For the difference in price, less than $10 I would recommend going with the roller button. Of course if you are going to have the block machined for the roller lifters, go ahead and have the machine shop machine the front of the block so you can use the factory setup to prevent the roller cam from walking i.e. the plate and needle bearing that goes behind the timing gear. Hope this helped.

mrr23

the lifter valley would need to have the spider tray bosses in the block already. like 85-86 blocks. then all you would need t odo is tap the bosses to put the bolts in. also the lifter bores would need to be machined flat on the top. so the lifter retainers can sit on the top. and yes the bores are shorter in the older blocks. the cam could be held in by a cam button. not sure if there would be enough material to machine holes to accept the factory cam retainer.

by the time you got done doing the machining, it may not be cost effective.

there isn't a needle bearing in the stock cam retainer set up. the factory cam is notched on the outside cam journal to ride in the retainer that bolts to the front of the block.