Why wouldn't this work? I have a 86 block in my 85 and its the only engine with a 1 piece seal and no roller lifters. How hard is it to adapt?

 

unless it already has the bosses for the roller lifter retainer then its not worth the time or effort, unless you get a newer block with atleast the bosses there---and hoppfully drilled and tapped then the older block wont work as far as I know. let some others chime in to get a census though cause i'm not sure about that--I know it MUST have the bosses there just to make it worthwhile to try but I'm not sure if there is an aftermarket setup to be able to do this but I'm guessing not.

 

Like mechanicalmehem said the older blocks dont have the bosses thier for the spider that goes in the lifter valley. I've seen a pre 86 block that didnt have them. My 89 (obviously had them and the roller cam setup). I saw a 95 truck motor that did have the bosses but still had the flat tappet cam in it. I thought that was weird. I thought that trucks went roller around 1993ish. I could be wrong. The engine out of the 95 truck is a peice of sh*t though it needed a rebuild (like my 305 tbi motor is any better, at least it only has 26K on it).

 

Well, all the rest of us have been building roller motors since the 60s, long before the factory ever hipped up to the idea. Then when they finally did, they must have been unable to design it themselves, and instead cheated off their engineering intern's sophomore project, and put in all that stupid spider crap and the rest of that foolishness that requires block alterations to work.

All you have to do to put a roller cam in an older block, is to do what all of us out here in the real world have been doing for decades: use lifters that are joined in pairs per cylinder by a link bar, shorter push rods (since the lifters are taller), and a cam button. Look for what's now referred to as a "retrofit" roller setup in all the cam mfrs' catalogs. That's all it takes. No special blocks, no drilling and tapping, no nothing, just drop it in and away you go. Too simple for the factory I guess. And it's far superior to the factory's rube Goldberg garbage in terms of strength and reliability besides.

 

sounds good I might get a pre 86 350 soon and I was wondering how I was gonna do a roller cam setup. Thanks for the info. BTW I think chevy engineers (or any engineer) will never find the easy solution. They always do things that make me wonder, "Didnt they know it would be easier to do..... or wouldnt this work better if..."