E-85 555 buildup- drag race by Jim Weise

3 minute(s) of a 87 minute read

A few more shortblock pics..

Which brings us to camshaft..

As I said before, this is not a run 10 times a year at a couple events motor.. it's a down and dirty, every weekend bracket racer, and as such, durability was much more important that squeezing every last HP out of it. 

So with that in mind, I selected the solid roller cam.. one thing that has always been an issue with the .700 lift rollers, is rocker arm durability. Guys have spend a whole lot of money on this one.. trust me the $750 for a set of TA rollers is peanuts compared to going with a set of Jesel rockers, and all the work it takes to put them on.

So for this project, I kept the cam at a reasonable lift .. .610 intake/.660 on the exhaust.. this allowed me to work with a set of comp cams valve springs, and keep the open pressure down around 580lbs, which is nothing compared to the nearly 800 lbs I have run on solid rollers in the past.

Cam duration is also reasonable, for this cubic inch .. 274/278 and it's ground on a 108 center..

It was a 4-7 swap deal, and it degreed in right on the money.

The roller lifters were another first of the breed.. Mike actually had crower put these together for me, and he was more than interested in how they would fit in the block.. the 1 motor that was built from the prototype run of 5 blocks, had to have the tops of the lifter bores machine for clearance, when the roller was on the base circle.

This one was the first with the large diameter roller cam, so that clearance was in question, but it worked out just fine, no screwing around required..

And then once again.. had to re-think how to do something I had done hundreds of times before.. can't use the magnetic base for the indicator on a Alum block!

JW