X-flow lifters

[popem 22]

Hey guys,

I'm going to replace my lifters when I get home on my next work break as one of them is noisy. just wondering whether Hydraulic or Solid lifters are better?
 

Alloy head 250, carby, if that makes a difference.

Cheers in advance.

[slydog 7,873]

Just fit hyd units bro. Solid lifters need adjustable rocker gear and a solid profile ground camshaft.  

[ando76 4,354]

Just make sure when you pull all the old lifters that none are ground down or looking iffy on the lifter face. Hate to see you put a new set of lifters onto a screwed camshaft cause that will destroy the new lifters in a heartbeat.

[gerg 10,871]

Normally you'd replace them along with a cam, reason being the already bedded cam lobes have to bed in again to the new lifters, which might go through the thin layer of heat treatment on the lobe surface and be into the soft iron.

[popem 22]

Thanks for the input guys, aftermarket cam was also on my shopping list, but I have never purchased a cam before and I'm not really sure what sort to get that will best suit my plans. Any of you guys Camshaft guru's?

[gerg 10,871]

Not a guru but your target hp, level of mods and intended use dictate what cam you want. Once you lock that in, it's pretty straightforward.

 

Now assuming you don't want to upgrade to headers, aftermarket manifold and Holley, I'd not go much bigger than a towing cam. Reason being is that by the time a bigger cam comes in, the carby and manifold are out of puff. The manifold is particularly bad for fuel distribution at anything above 4000 rpm.

[wagoon 2,429]

If your after camshaft guru's give one of the camshaft manufactures a call and chat to them.

But as a amateur internet mechanic I do agree with Greg, it depends on what you want from the car. Everybody always want the most power out of their engine, but you need to be honest in what the car is actually going to be used for. No point buying a camshaft thats going to need 10 grand spent on the rest of the engine, or having a massive lumpy cam with stupid rough idle if your driving to work everyday through stop start traffic.

The cost of modifiy will grow pretty damn quick when you start changing things for performance as other things need to be upgraded to match otherwise its not worth doing it in the first place.

[matt_lamb_160 252]

List of good cams:

 

For use with std. EFI ECU, would be good in any otherwise std x-series: Camtech ***-509

 

Should be std. and my pick if you don't plan on changing much else: Camtech ***-503B Tighe 422A

 

Max. recommended for 2.77 gears with stock converter (needs springs), I think these actually need minimum 2.92 diff gears (max. 3.27). Tighe 725 (could use the crow 14892, but it is small for a 280deg. adv. cam)

 

For details see the Camtech and Tighe’s websites.

 

http://www.camtechca..._xflow_hyd.html http://www.tighecams.com.au/cars.htm

[gerg 10,871]

Those are similar to Crow's mild cams ie 205/209 and 472 lift (inlet). Crow seem to like split pattern grinds whereas Tighe has mostly straight ones (same inlet/exhaust profile). I get the feeling that crow just recycles clevo patterns for crossies, as a lot of them are the same.

[popem 22]

All these numbers mean little to me, I am going to have to do some reading up on Camshaft tech.

[wagoon 2,429]

A very basic way to think of the numbers on the camshaft is look at the number in the @50thou.

For a crossflow:

Anything under 200 is pretty much the same as standard

From 200 to 210 is mild performance but still using all standard equipment

From 210 to 220 is moderate performance with the higher end of this group needing some performance parts installed with the camshaft.

From 220 up is still moderate performance but this will require changing of parts like diff gears, torque converters as well as performance parts like valve spring etc.

 

Now these are very basic guides and camshafts are quite complicated when it comes to lobe seperation angles and duration and lift and how it all works together. So if you go off the above list and choose the range that will give you the performance your after then you can ring a camshaft manufacturer and they will tell you what parts will be needed to go with the camshaft you choose.

[popem 22]

Also, i'm assuming that if I fit Hydraulic Lifters, I would also be looking at a Hydraulic Camshaft?

[wagoon 2,429]

Also, i'm assuming that if I fit Hydraulic Lifters, I would also be looking at a Hydraulic Camshaft?

Yeah mate you can't mix hydraulic and solid parts. So solid lifters only for solid camshaft but thing like valve springs are universal so to speak as they don't care what camshaft you have they only care the size of the camshaft as you have to match the valve spring to the cam size. Again this is very basic description but the thing that keeps getting repeated which is really important is everything must match each other otherwise you are just wasting your time and money.

With Hydraulic camshafts there are 2 types of lifters to choose from, 1 is standard hydraulic lifter which is for just about every hydraulic camshaft. The 2nd one is called anti pump up which is only needed for the higher end of the hydraulic camshaft range and to be using anti pump up lifters you need to be changing carby and ignition and revving the engine at lot more than standard.

 

Easiest way to decide on what camshaft you buy is:

Are you going to change carby to a bigger one?

Are you going to upgrade to a better ignition?

Are you putting extractor and bigger than standard exhaust on the car?

Is the car Auto or manual? This is important as you are limited more by an Auto than a manual before you have to start upgrading parts in the gearbox

What is the diff ratio of the car? This matters because as you can see on camshaft manufactures websites some camshafts require certain diff gearing to make the camshaft work best.

And the 2 most important questions are

What is the car to be used for?

How much money do you have to spend in the next 6 months on the car? And that's not what you want to spend but what do you actually have to spend on the car

[popem 22]

I envisage upgrading the carby, (not sure to what), upgrading ignition, cooling system, pacemakers and 2 1/2" system, and swapping to some sort of LSD, so ratio can be decided later on. The car is also manual.
 

Thats about all I plan on doing to start with, and have money set aside for it. What it costs is what it costs. 5 or 6 grand I was thinking.

[wagoon 2,429]

Well now the only real limiting factor is how you want to use the car. Is it going to see a drag strip once a month, once a year or every week. Do you prefer racing that involves corners like sprint or hill climb events or is it more 5-10 laps of a full length circuit. Or is the car only going to be used on the street for stuff like traffic light drags or highway rolling starts or just general tear around hooning sort of stuff.

 

5-6 grand is a really good budget that will get you a really nice crossflow that will produce a fair bit of power. But depending on how you want to use it is where the power is made as this will suit the application and make for a fast car where you want it to be fast

[popem 22]

Its really only going to be a Sunday driver, occasional club day I guess. All I really want to be able to do is give a couple of V8's a run for their money at the lights. Hahaha. Cheers for all the input guys! I still really want to run triple side draft carbs of some description.

[CHESTNUTXE 7,312]

m8 just go all out and use solid roller cam and 750 d-pumper,lol.