Thread: Wanting to give my 460 some pep!!

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C'mon, kids, play nice or they'll take your crayons away!
Seriously, though, I have both rollers and flat tappet engines with 300K miles on the same cam. Then, too, I've had both fail in less time, some went south in no time at all. The critical time with flat tappets is the first minute or so after initial startup. If it fires right up with no problem and runs easily, and there's a good cam lube and zinc additive used, I have had no trouble at all with modern oils. Not to say rollers aren't better, just not absolutely necessary for a street engine.
As for heads on a 460, the C3's can be made to work well if you are rebuilding the engine anyway, just buy the pistons needed to put the CR where you want it and port the heads a bit to get rid of the restriction in the exhaust ports. And of course get a timing set that is straight up, not retarded like the factory ones.
It's not just the retarded timing sets that kill a stocker, the cams have a profile reminiscent of a Stovebolt Chevy 6.

My thinking is, as long as he is going in there and changing cams anyway, why not get the peace of mind a roller would provide? We are seeing so many flat cams going away prematurely these days that lots of people are adding $ 10 to every oil change because they are dumping in some additive to put back the stuff the oil companies are now leaving out. How much does it add to the cost to go roller cam? Maybe $ 200-$ 300 total? For me that little difference would be well worth it............no break in procedure, potentially longer life, and probably better performance due to less friction.

Don't take offense to this slightly spirited discussion we are having, if we were having it around a round of cold ones it would not come off as harsh as it does in print. We are just seeing a difference in philosophies here. On some forums this would be considered very tame.

Don