What exactly are roller rockers?

[Hib Halverson]

There are three types of "roller" rocker arms. Ones with roller tips (ie: Comp Cams, etc), ones with roller fulcrums (OE LS1/LS2?LS6) and ones with roller tips and roller fulcurms such as used on many all-out competition engines.

The benefits of roller rockers are less friction and lower oil temperature.

Any one claiming 15hp with roller rockers is either smoking crack or is running a very powerful engine at extreamly high rpm, ie: 800 hp at 9000 rpm.

In more ordinary applications such as street high perfomance 350s in our Vettes, there is no practical performance advantage below 6000 rpm and even above that, the improvement will be small.

They can be installed on a stock LT1 (early or late) however you may have to change the valve covers. You'll also need to change the rocker arm nuts.

 

[drags1998]

Dan, im a little comfused about your comment. I think you might mean,SIDE LOADING on the stem of the valve. ALSO, do you have any Pics of your vette,In 30 years of drag racing Ive seen 3 street driven vettes that would run 10.8s ,unless of course your talking 1/8 mile race track!!!! just curious?

 

[JohnZ]

Jack,


Are the restoration projects in which you are helping Confederate Air Force projects? The only project with which I have been involved is the restoration of an OH-13E Helicopter. This is an USAF version of the Bell-47 similar to the one shown in the opening credits of the M.A.S.H TV show. However, the restoration was only at a museum-level type of restoration. I was not allowed to restore it to flying status. Nevertheles, I had the oportunity to teardown the 6 Cyl. Horizontally Opposed Franklin engine and the entire airframe to its main sections including the removal of the cabin. What remains is to suspend it from its display location cealing. Historically speaking, its accurate.

Gerry - that brings back old memories - I trained in the old Hiller H-23's (also had flat-six Franklins) in 1963 at Fort Wolters, Texas before moving on to UH-1B's at Fort Rucker, then to UH-1B Gunships in Vietnam later that same year. We ran the old Franklins at 3200 and 32", got about 100 hours between overhauls (the civilian versions were restricted to 2800 and 28"). Beat hell out of those old birds in training