What are the pros and cons of each type off camshaft over the others. I am pretty confused right now with hydraulic, roller, solid lifter, hydraulic roller...

 

You have a roller cam in your engine now, so any replacement would need to be a roller also.

The differences...

the ramps are shaped differently, a roller can have steeper ramps, a roller has less friction.

Roller cams are more exensive, but if you try to put a flat tappet cam in your engine it wont work.

-Doug

EDIT: solid vs. hydrolic lifters...hydrolic lifters use oil pressure to remove lash in the valve train, but arent good much past 7000rpm. Solid lifters can rev to high heaven, but plan on adjusting your valve lash often.

 

If you can buy this months Chevy High Performance. They have a couple articles on camshaft tech and explain the differences fairly well.

 

You can stuff a flat tappet cam in a roller block no problem. Only its a step backwards so why would you do it?

You need to get a cam that is the 87-up roller cam that has the retainer.

 

Thanks for your help guys. I didn't mean to do a cam swap on my 305 though. I was asking because I am planning out my 350 buildup and was trying to decide whether to go with a pre-87 or a post-87 block. I know that the blocks used a roller cam starting in 87, so I figured I should take into account whether or not there are any advantages to going with one block over another in terms of cam choices.
One more question- I've seen ads for hydraulic cams, roller cams, and hydraulic rollers. Is hydraulic roller another name for a given type of cam, or is it something else completely?

 

Hydraulic flat tappet, solid tappet--Hydraulic roller, solid roller:
Those are the basic types of cam lobes. As for the pro's and con's... The rollers have a lot more aggresive ramps, so they normally have more lift than the flat tappet cams (given the same amount of duration). Of course there is the friction factor, but there is something else very few people touch on.. Most of the roller came that are ground today (hydraulic and solid) have asymetrical lobes.. Meaning they open the valves extremely quickly and close them more gently in order to make the valvetrain more stable at higher RPM's (Fast closing rates tend to allow the valves try to bounce on the seats)...

 

as far as i know, not all 87-up sbc's had roller cams, but all f-bodies and corvettes did, among others.

 

Yeah, you're partly right. All 87-up SBC's had the PROVISIONS for roller cams (threaded holes for the lifter retainer spider, etc), but not all of them came with roller cams. I believe it took the trucks a little while before they switched to roller cams.

Anyways, to answer the thread starters question, no, there is no difference in basic cam type between what some people call a "roller cam" versus calling it a "hydraulic roller cam". One name is more specific to one type of roller cam, but a hydraulic roller cam could be called both.

If you're buying a "roller cam" make sure it's the type of cam you want. Remember now, all cams are either solid lifter cams or hydraulic lifter cams (this differentiation has nothing to do with whether or not the lifters are roller, but can be equally applied to roller cams). As was stated before the main empirical difference is that solid lifter cams can rev higher than hydraulic lifter cams.

So to break it down as simply as possible:

CAMS

Roller cams
-Hydraulic roller cams
-Solid roller cams

Flat tappet cams
-Hydraulic flat tappet
-Solid flat tappet

 

i have an 87 with a lg4 in it, i have read elsewhere that not all 87's are not roller cammed, could someone give me a answer as to whether i have a roller or hydraulic??

 

87 LG4 was the only carbed roller in a F-Body

87-up Caprices, Vettes and F-Bods got rollers

The trucks didnt get rollers til 96 (Vortec)

 

Thanks alot for straightening that out for me guys. With all this in mind, I guess it would definitely be better for me to get an 87 or newer block and a hydraulic roller. I'm fine with only 7000 rpm, don't want more than that.

 

I wouldn't take a stock bottom end past 6000, and only occasionaly at that.

 

I would have to say that all depends on the stock bottom end.. I built a little 358 a while back with a stock Vette, steel crank (offset ground .020 to get TRUE zero deck), stock "X" rods polished, shot peened and resized with ARP bolts and SRP 2 valve relief flat tops.It had a lil solid roller, AFR 195's, a bowtie single plane and a 750 DP.. I routinely spun it up around 7400 and did so spraying a 250 shot!! But of course it was balanced to within 1/2 a gram also.. After beating on it for over 2 years and over 30 bottles, I pulled it out, freshened it up with new rings, bearings and valve springs, I sold the long block for $3400 and it's still running high 10's!! It just goes to show, GM does have some stock parts out there you can get CHEAP and beat the HELL out of them safely.. The block, rods and crank I aquired from a 76' L-82 Vette after replacing the 350 with a long rod 406..

 

pulled the valve covers off of my 87 Lg4 yesterday, my rocker arms are not rollers, could someone give me an answer as to why they are not, if i have a roller cam???

 

Just because you MIGHT have a factroy installed hydrolic roller CAM, does not mean you have roller rockers. GM still used those cheesy stamped steel pieces because the factory rollers never had any REAL lift to speak of..

 

the only time GM ever used a roller rocker was on the LT4.