[Steve C.]

Not intended to sway your friend towards a solid roller cam but in many situations a solid roller can provide better driveability on the street over a hydraulic flat tappet cam with the 'same' .050" duration.

Case in point...

About 30 years ago my origional 400 RAIII engine had a COMP Magnum 280H hyd flat tappet cam installed with 230 at .050". For the most part the engine was stock with the origional unported factory heads, factory intake & Q-jet, etc.
But it did have headers, roller rocker arms and a few other minor modifications allowed to run in "Top Stock" class at NMCA events, including the 230H cam. It ran a best of 12.81 at 105.5 mph, nothing to write home out today but OK back then.
Not long after we changed to a Crower 60450 solid roller cam with 233 at .050", rated at Crower as a 'All range camshaft for heavy car'. No major changes were made to the engine except the cam change. There was no significant improvement on the track, but the driveability was a tad bit better on the street. Now with that said, the cost of the upgrade was a hard lesson learned.... and brings up the subject the solid roller needed more duration. The change from 230 degrees duration to 233 degrees had little impact.

Later I gave that solid roller cam to Lee Atkinson, he passed it on to his friend Warren who put it into his 455. I used to call it the "baby roller" but Warren loved it. But he did comment, "In hindsight we might have gone with a slightly more radical cam" brings to mind from that experience I learned that when upgrading from a hyd flat tappet cam to a solid roller that you need to increase the amount of duration. Today I would add at least a minimum of 6 additional degrees of intake duration."

YES I know, the 400 is not apples-to-apples with a 455. Point being here the solid roller uses more duration and it can have better driveability on the street.
Around 2003 it was reported the cam had well over 10,000 miles on it.


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