A little background here, I've been building engines since the mid 70's, nothing radical, just street/strip/ autocross stuff. Way back when, I had a bad run in with roller rockers. Used the best available at the time (Crane) and had the needle bearings come out of one and go through the oil pump. Had the same thing happen in another engine. Now both of these engines happened to be 454 closed chamber BBC'c with L88 cams, one in a stick car and one in an automatic. I also has a Harland Sharp rocker break in a short track SBCengine that I did. Two of those engines were damaged. For that reason, whenever I've used roller rockers I also epoxy screen in the oil drainback holes. Now, there is absolutely no doubt that roller rockers offer a big performance benefit, along with roller cams, but, I just don't have the bizzalls to use them consistently on street engines for 2 reasons, 1: guys never maintain their street engines and unless they break, they never look at anything (unlike race engines) and 2: I would feel much better if there was an aftermarket rocker that would go 100,000 miles like the factory stuff. I think Comp cams are on the right track, but time will tell. I don't need a flame warm here, but rather an intelligent conversation on roller rockers.
Thanks for your time.

 

You're right on track IMHO.... I will not run an aluminum rocker on the street, for exactly that reason. Only Comp or Crower steel ones. I'm not ready to trust the cheeeep made in China steel ones from CAT quite yet either.

Unfortunately I don't have 100k miles on any of those yet, untouched; the longest I've run them unsupervised so far is about 30k.

Incidentally, that's been a common issue with LS1s.... there's a TSB about finding little rollers during an oil change.

 

I have put about 30000 miles on a set of Harland Sharp aluminum 1.5 roller rockers. I'am in the process of having the engine upgraded and installing 1.6 roller rockers again aluminum. Anyways the Harland Sharp rockers still look brand new after 30000 miles. I would have reused the Harland Sharps but I'am looking for a little more horsepower. Hehehehe. Allen

 

Dont forget that many of the parts in the summit catolog are race items that arent ment to be used on a street car. Those aluminum rollers defiatly go in that catagory. The screens are a great insurance policy and wont hurt any. Id have to say that going with a roller cam is a much greater benefit than rockers. So i would only recomend the rockers after someones gone to a roller cam.

 

I ran a motor in my 71 with cheapo aluminum 1.6 RR's for at least 80,000mi without a failure. that was on a hydraulic flat tappet though...

it did break a rocker stud once (looked like a bubble in the stud - also el cheapo NON arp studs), swapped in a set of arp's on the same rockers and no problem ever after. motor died many years later because a rod bearing went.

I can't imagine that these things are that failure prone??

it probably depends a lot on spring pressure and cam lift/ramp rates