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!

[Kern Dog]

The rocker shafts came in today.



Look close, you can see the scratches in the originals.



The scratches were not fatal but hey..."while I'm improving things"...



They cam in a Comp Cam camshaft box but the invoice had Edelbrock on it. Is this some corporate thing?



Regardless...They measure right and all the rocker arms, shims and spacers slipped right on and fit nicely.
Next up is pushrods, once I get those, I can close it up and get ready to fire it up. I started this in early February and it will be April next week!

[Kern Dog]

This project started February 7th and will soon it will be two months! The pushrods are about 2 days away.
Several things conspired to extend the length of the project including a dishwasher swap, an injury that sidelined me for a week, a few cosmetic changes (since so much was apart here) and other odds and ends.
I decided to paint the intake and heads to match the block. When I had the engine out in 2022, I painted the block GoManGo...



I went ahead and painted the heads as seen in earlier pictures. I also painted the intake...



The water pump and housing too.



More to come...

[Kern Dog]

Finally, the pushrods arrived this afternoon. They measured exactly what I asked for, 8.6625 or as close as I can get with my calipers. I admit, they are not NASA level tech....



Looking at the number on the display, you need to deduct HALF the diameter of the pushrods to get the "Effective length. That is .310 divided by two for .155. Deduct .155 from 8.817 and you get.....8.662.
The 8.662 length should be just right with the advised 3/4 turn (.0375") preload with the adjusters tightened right where the Mancini Racing guidelines are.

With the pushrods here, I hoped to get more done. I had almost 3 hours out there today and barely got much to show for it. I got tied up trying to get the rocker arms bolted in place to where they had adequate oil clearance. More on that in a moment.
I gave the rocker shafts a wipedown but did not clean the insides. I'll pull them apart and douche everything before final assembly. Look here, you can see why I wanted to replace the shafts...





Here is where it got frustrating today....
These rocker arms have been in this engine for years. Back when they were new, I had to take a few thousands off the edges of the hold downs to get some operating clearance for the rocker arms. They started off fully blue anodized.



You can see where some of the color has worn off. Totally normal, nothing to worry about. When I mocked up the rocker arms with the other shafts, I was able to get a steady .020" clearance on every section between the holddowns. I wanted to make sure I wasn't going to bind anything so today I set about measuring in between every hold down.



I don't know why but I kept coming in way too tight with hardly any side to side clearance. I backed off the adjusters enough for them to have plenty of pushrod play but I kept having to sand, test fit, sand, test fit the clearance.



I don't know exactly why I was able to get plenty of clearance before but now I'm fighting for it. The only thing different is the shafts. If there was too much clearance in one section and too little in the other, I'd blame the hole spacing in the shafts. As usual, I tend to blame myself rather than the parts until I am sure that I am doing everything correctly.
As I closed up shop tonight, the 2468 side has been clearanced enough to work. The PRW instructions stated between .015 and .020. Mike from B3 Racing said that there is nothing wrong with being a little wider than spec, you just may have a little more valvetrain noise. I don't recall the Mancini Racing guidelines other than You want some operating clearance to avoid binding.
Once I get the 1357 side set to proper clearance, I'll pull them all out and do a thorough cleaning.
Thanks again for the reminder. It is easy to forget things when you're frustrated.

[Kern Dog]

It is advised to use studs to mount the rocker shafts, not bolts.
I remembered having studs in this setup before so I went out to the shed and found 10 of them. Four are longer than the other 6, all are fine thread on one end, coarse on the other. I have no washers and only 4 of the 12 point nuts. I'm going to see if I can buy 6 more nuts for these and reuse the hardened washers that I've used with the bolts.
I saw the Trick Flow set on the Summit site:

DODGE Trick Flow Specialties TFS-61600613 Trick Flow® Rocker Arm Shaft Studs | Summit Racing

Also there are these from Mancini Racing:

Rocker Shaft Stud Package

If I have to wait for parts, what harm is there with another delay ?