Which Type Of Lifter

Live2shred303

New Member
Jul 20, 2012
29
0
1
Im rebuilding a 302. i was looking at summit racing and there are 4 types of lifters. Hydraulic flat tappet, hydraulic roller, mechanical flat tappet, and mechanical roller. What is the difference? Which type is the best and which type should i get?
 
  • Sponsors (?)


What's best is a matter of opinion and depends on the application. Hydraulic lifters are spring loaded and use oil from the engine to "self-adjust" the valvetrain. Rollers are what they sound like; there's a roller that touches the camshaft lobe. Solid lifters have no give to them so the valvetrain always has some clearance. Solids are more for higher performance applications as a general rule. They can be used on the street but are less suited to the street. They will make more valvetrain noise due to the clearance and they also need to be adjusted periodically. This means that you need rockers that are adjustable if you run solid lifters. Most Ford small block engines have non-adjustable rockers. You just bolt down the rockers and go. It's nice for ease of installation, but not the highest performance design. Only Fords that came factory with solid lifters have adjustable rockers and it's a short list - I think Boss 302 and 351 are about the only small blocks on it. Rollers are great with the newer crappy oils that the EPA requires, but older blocks require more expensive retrofit lifters in order to run roller lifters.

The cam and lifters come as a matched set. You can't swap lifters onto a cam designed for a different type of lifter. The entire valvetrain and cam should be selected to work together with the engine and your desired performance. There are a lifetimes' worth of details here I'm not going to try to explain.

Some people running 302s will use a newer "roller block" that has features built into it for a hydraulic roller lifter cam. That's what I have in my '70. It's a good option for me so I don't worry about buying special oil with ZDDP in it and the camshaft doesn't need a break in period when rollers are used. With flat tappets you want to remove inner valve springs and run the motor in for 20 minutes at 2000-2500 rpm. Then shut down and install the inner valve springs and run normally. Kind of a PITA. Since this is what I did for my street cruiser you probably know what I would recommend for you (if your goals are to spend as little as possible and you don't care whether the block in your car is original or not). The '80s and '90s roller block 302s are cheap and easy to find. They also last a long time in their original EFI configurations. The motor in my car has well over 100k miles and works great. I didn't open it up since it works fine.