i have an 83 transam with no previous head work that i know of and ive been looking in to geting some roller rockers for some added horse now my question is what kind of rockers can i buy that will fit directly on to my head assembly with out modifying them i also know their are diff ratios what ratio should i get as well as how hard would this be to put on and how much of a benifit would i get from the change thanks

 

Guess I was wrong, edited, so no one else follows my bad advice.

 

why does he need self aligning? His motor is an 83. No vortecs or anything.

just buy some decent roller rockers. on a 305 I would buy a better cam and stay with 1.5 rockers. The consistent lift and lower friction is worth it. You could go with 1.6 if you dont want to do the cam. But it wont be as much hp as the cam alone.

 

you won't see any gain or feel any gain by going to roller rockers. if your rockers are SA then you need to replace them with SA if not then you need to stay with non SA. 1.6 will give you maybe .030 more lift without changing the duration. you also want steel parts because the aluminum will fail over time from fatigue.

 

Tell that to my pre '85 motor that had SA rockers and used NON SA rollers that slid off.

 

In general, a 83 motor should not need SA rockers. SA rockers weren't introduced until 87. If all his parts are stock 83 stuff like he says, they would actually cause binding. They would only be necessary of the guide slots had been hogged out, but guide plates hadn't been installed; or if a set of later model heads had been put on it.

On a stock motor, especially a LG4, you would get almost zero increase in power. The motor might run smoother from the ratios being the same on all valves (unlike stamped sheet metal garbage ones) but they do nothing to address the first basic restriction in that motor which is the exhaust system. If it's a L69, they might give you as much as 5 HP.

Rather than unbolting stuff and bolting on romantic-sounding buzzword parts, approach modifying your car from the point of view of identifying the biggest obstacle to performance, and overcoming it. As you do this one obstacle at a time, you're putting your money where it gets the most results per $$$.

They are easy to put on, probably one of the easiest mods there is.

 

For now on, when you give me technical advice, be as informative as possible, or I'll give out misguided (no pun intended) info.