Who has had success with a roller cam big block?

[Kern Dog]

To heck with it. I'm going to return these rocker arms for a refund. The whole experience with them has been a debacle.
I can't get a guy from Summit to do a stock check since they only stock complete sets. For individual components, they take the order but the manufacturer does the drop ship routine. Summit won't call PRW and aske them to start opening packages to inspect them.
Remember the days of the local Speed Shop where you went in and they had stuff on the shelf, you could see and touch it before buying?



I did a trial fitment of the Mancini aluminum rocker set and of course, they fit fine since they are what I've had in the engine since ....maybe 2012? They have a ball style adjuster layout so getting a pushrod length wasn't possible. The roller lifters are taller than the flat tappet ones meaning the pushrods have to be shorter. The pushrod length tool I have is still too long to use here. My new ball-ball pushrods (meant for these PRW rocker arms) are 8.888 but the Mancini rocker arms adjusters stick out further meaning I will need even shorter pushrods.
I'll return the rocker arms in person unless they agree to pay shipping. I need a pushrod checking tool. The rocker shafts in the Mancini set do have a few grooves so I'll replace those.
It was late February of last year when I ordered the cam and lifters. It took a month for Comp to get the lifters back in stock. I've been slow to dive into this project since I had other stuff going on and hey....this car ran great and hauled ass as it was. When I finally tore into this in early February this year, I thought it would take a few weeks given that obstacles sometimes just appear.
The rocker arm hiccups in this project are directly responsible for most of the delays.

[Kern Dog]

The PRW rocker arms were returned for a refund.
I am going to use the Mancini Racing rocker arms but I did order some new shafts. The ones I have do have some wear to them.



The stainless steel shims in the rocker arm set wore slight grooves into the shafts but the rockers themselves seem fine, just needing some cleaning.



Using these aluminum rocker arms means I'll need different pushrods again since the PRW was a ball-ball setup and the aluminum ones are ball-cup. Both designs are fine but some are chosen to fit a particular application. A guy on the FBBO forum asked me why I didn't just change the adjusters on the aluminum rockers so I could use the new pushrods that I bought. In theory, it sounded like a great idea. I took a "cup" adjuster from one of the PRW arms to do a mock up.



It threaded in fine and I seated it, then spun it out one turn from seated.



This left the top end with too little engagement of the nut. I was instructed that there should be TWO threads sticking above the nut here.



That isn't all. The cup style adjuster blocks oil flow to the tip of the pushrod.



With the original ball type adjuster in place....



You can see how in it's original form, the oil passage will direct oil into the cup of the pushrod for adequate oiling.

[Kern Dog]

I had a set of ball-ball pushrods made up at Smith Brothers last week but now they will be too long. I called to aske them if they could shorten them and change them to ball-cup. The man said they can, but....
Mine cost $14.45 each. I bought 18 to have 2 spares.
To shorten a pushrod is $10 each plus the cost of the ends they have to press in. The ends are about $3 each. When you add in shipping costs to and from, it is about the same money.
I'll have some new pushrods for sale at a reduced price sometime soon...

[Kern Dog]

While this project is not done, I've done some rough accounting of what this has cost so far. I am rounding UP in some cases because I am not great at keeping receipts.
* Cam and lifters....................................................$1450
* Valve springs, shims, seals....................................$325
* Timing set with Torrington bearing.........................$200
* Melonized intermediate shaft/oil pump drive...........$200
* Gaskets, spark plugs.............................................$150
* Reinforced timing cover, cam button.......................$125
* Header gaskets.....................................................$50
* 12 qts oil, filter......................................................$120
* Rocker shafts, pushrod checking tool.....................$200
* Pushrods (Now too short).....................................$277
* Pushrods (next set, not yet ordered).....................$277
______________________________________________________
............................................................................$ 3374.



Yeah. THIS is what stopped me from switching to a roller cam all of these years. Looking back at a few notebooks I have on this car, I considered switching to a roller cam back as far as 2006 when I wiped out my first cam. When I decided to actually move forward with this and started collecting parts last year, I did NOT keep a running total of the costs. I sold car parts I had and just bought stuff with what amounted to "free money".
I wanted to make a record of this to advise anyone that may consider this option that THIS is not a cheap way to go. Be ready for the costs. If I had kept the PRW rocker arms, the total would be just shy of $3700 since I'd only be buying one set of pushrods and no rocker shafts or a pushrod checking tool. Still, $3700 is a chunk of cash. This should give me peace of mind about cam failures so that is worth something.

[Kern Dog]

Measuring for pushrods again....
The PRW rocker arms had the cup adjusters but since I'm going back to the Mancini Racing rocker arms, I need different pushrods configured to work with their ball type adjusters. Measuring the ball-ball design pushrods is easy since you're measuring to two points that you can clearly see. The Mancini racing setup means I need pushrods with a ball shape on one end and a cup on the other like the bottom one in the picture.



I have measured the overall length of the top design in the picture above but the bottom design measures in a different way. Measuring the overall length will result in pushrods that are too long. The tool I bought is made by Trick Flow and it does have a scale on it.





Each revolution of the screw in end equals .050". This tool reads 7.8 to 8.8 inches BUT when measuring it fully compressed/screwed in, it measured 7.952 overall. The 7.8 measurement is actually to the INSIDE of the cup end, not the top rim of it.
Maybe I am making this more complicated than it needed to be?
I put the tool in place, bolted on the rocker arms and unwound the tool until I found zero lash. From there I took the rocker arms and pushrod tool out and measured it. I got 8.78" but then I had to deduct HALF the diameter of the pushrod diameter of .310 so...... 8.78 minus .155 is 8.625. I ordered pushrods at that length.
THEN an hour later I realized that I forgot to add preload to the length. I need to add what amounts to 3/4 turn of the adjuster past zero lash. In my case, the number is .0375 for an effective length of 8.662".
Lucky for me, Smith Brothers is busy and hadn't already started making mine yet!