My builder claims that for street applications solid roller lifters are poor for street usage b/c they suffer oiling problems. Is this true? Do the cam manufactures typically grind these for small base circles?

 

with a solid cam you can use oil restrictors to cut down the amount of oil going to the cam. i can't see why a solid cam would oil any differant, the cam doesn't have any bearing on the amount of oil going to it. i would say most if not all solid rollers aren't designed for your typical street or street preformance applications. as they use to say back in the old days a solid roller would be a "full race cam".

 

Depending on the lift of the cam and base circle (position of the lifter in the bore at 0 lift) , you may have to regroove the lifter bores to expose the oiling groove to the supply. Just another one of those little details in building up an engine.

 

well damn i never knew that, but i've never used a solid roller either.

 

There are 2 kinds of solid lifters, commonly referred to as "edge orifice" and "piddle valve". The edge orifice kind has the oil hole located all the way at the very top of the part of the lifter that would be exposed to the oil passage, so it only oils the top end of the motor when the cam is at the base circle; the piddle valve type oils up the push rod through the entire cycle of the cam except the lift ramp. As a result, edge orifice ones are oK for roller rockers which need far less oil than ball fulcrum ones, and will result in higher oil pressure and cooler oil since less oil will be hanging around in the rocker gallery on top of the heads, which is the hottest part of the motor.

Most solid rollers are ground that way because they're intended for use in motors where roller rockers would be a matter of course. As olng as you use roller rockers, they're fine on the street. But solid roller lifters and ball fulcrum rockers is a recipe for problems.