Running Rhoads lifters on a mild solid cam

[PackardV8]

Since 1951, all Studebaker V8 cams have been solid lifter designs. Some Stude owners have a fascination with hydraulic lifters; probably just because they can't have them without spending money for a custom billet hydraulic cam grind.

One limiting factor is the OEM Stude cam core is small diameter, with not enough material for most modern grinds. Lobe lift is limited to about .300" with 1.5 rockers and .425"-.500" net lift.

Back in the day, one Stude parts vendor was selling a "hydraulic lifter cam kit" but he was cagy about where his parts came from. Finally, I figured out he was using Mopar Rhoads lifters on an Iskenderian ST5 (.448” lift @ .018" lash hot, 268 advertised duration @ .020” lift, 228 @ .050 lift with .018” lash.) From all reports, it worked OK and gave a smooth idle with good top end power.

Has anyone else here had any experience with a similar kluge?

[F-BIRD'88]

If you are hell bent on using Hyd lifters,,, you don't need Rhoads lifters.
Just use standard Mopar hyd lifters on the cam.
if the cam is a mild but street friendly cam it will run fine.
Ya the solid lifters and goingt o be better but the Rhoads hyd lifters are a waste of time and money.
isky has tons of good cam profiles that are probabily very suitable for this.

Note if you jsut set he solid lifters a bit tighter than the hot lash spec
in the first place you will find it is probabily a lot quieter at idle
(as quiet as hyd lifters and WWAY quieter than Rhoads lifters...
And the need to re adjust them will be less frequent.
A LOT less fuss then Rhoads either way.
isky may even have Stud V8 cam cores for you too.
What is the max you can go on the LOBE lift on these engines?
.320" ok? You don;t need wild cam lobe lift unless you are going max drag racing with highly maxed out heads etc.
The overall cam lift curve Duration, LSA etc is much more effective.
The Isky cam lobes run quiet and make great power and will also run fine with ( standard) HYD lifters if you must..

[peejay]

Every engine I have worked on that had Rhoads lifters had exhaust seats that were beat all to hell. When the lifter bleeds down at low RPM, the valve closes on a fast part of the lobe and it just slams into the seat.

At least they are very noisy, and of dubious value...

[Boz-Race Engines]

Rhodes lifters are a waste of time, and if you need them for any reason you have the wrong cam, ive never understood why you would go to the trouble of picking a nice profile cam then waste it by putting a sloppy lifter on it so it delivers only part of the cam profile to the valve, just stupid

[PackardV8]

Thanks for all the replies. That's why I asked; the Rhoads seemed as if they'd cause more problems than they'd solve. Wonder how they've managed to sell that crap all these years?

For those who said running hydraulics on a solid cam will be fine, is there a general number as to how the duration changes? Obviously, the hydraulic lifter is beginning the opening .018" (or whatever) sooner than the solid which is still taking up lash. On old slow ramp cams it's not making a lot of upward motion, but it is lifting the valve off the seat.

[BigBro74]

Jack, crane made lifters that were a little more moderate bleed down rate that seem to work just fine (“High Intensity”). I have used them in some vacuum rule stock cars and a friends 289 ford engine and all worked just fine and as advertised. Last I mentioned them a few years ago Chase chimed in that they still made the lifters.
Hope this helps- Jason

[pdq67]

Years ago, I asked UDHarold about a mild solid lifter cam for a 283 and he said to just use his 274 Hy-cam an run solids on it lashed down hot to like .004" and .006" and go.

He said that the, "roundy-round", SBF guys have been doing it for years fine.

pdq67

[Geoff2]

Rhoads lifters work very well....when they are mated with the right cam. For a street driven car, they allow use of a larger duration cam that with std lifters would have otherwise have a rough idle; with the Rhoads, idle quality & vacuum is improved. You could also get a mileage & low speed torque improvement.

I have been making my own version of Rhoads lifters for years out of stock lifters because Rhoads cost a fortune here.

I would not use Rhoads or any hyd lifter with a sol lifter cam. The long ramps on the sol cam will give a rough idle & poor vacuum. The results could be quite variable too, because of all the variables that affect hyd lifter bleed down rate: oil viscosity, oil temp, rocker ratio, spring tension.

[turdwilly]

Jack, crane made lifters that were a little more moderate bleed down rate that seem to work just fine (“High Intensity”). I have used them in some vacuum rule stock cars and a friends 289 ford engine and all worked just fine and as advertised. Last I mentioned them a few years ago Chase chimed in that they still made the lifters.
Hope this helps- Jason

I don't claim to know enough to tell you whether Rhodes lifters are crap or not, perhaps as someone else said above if rhodes lifters work for you then your cam is too big. All I can tell you is what I have experienced myself with them, although it was 30 years ago.

A friend had a DD '70 Nova, 355 11.1 461 heads victor jr 750 holley Comp 292H w/ Rhodes lifters T350 w/vega (2500??) converter 3.73 axle & 60 series street tires & slapper bars.

That thing had so much low end torque it felt like a stout big block. At low speed on the street in 3rd gear, you could part throttle it & it would raise all the travel in the front suspension & mash you into the seat. His best runs were shifting at 5500, so maybe it's true that the cam was too big, & the Rhodes lifters "brought it down" to the cam it really needed. But it would run 8.02 on those street tires (the old white letter "wide track radials" - not drag radials) through full 2.5" exhaust with turbo mufflers.

He didn't like the noise of the Rhodes lifters, so he bought a set of the Crane variable duration lifters & installed them. He was much happier as they were much quieter. Until he made a pass - & it ran 3 tenths slower. He went home & reinstalled the Rhodes & it gained the 0.3 right back.

During the same time, I ran Rhodes lifters in my '69 Cougar low compression turd 351W DD. I ran it at the strip on the weekends & drove it everywhere else as it was all I had. It made plenty of long trips across state lines. I totaled that car, pulled the engine & installed it in a '67 Cougar. Drove it for a while then installed a solid lift cam, pulled the performer intake & installed a torquer 2 (I know - POS) & a few other mods, & drove it for a couple more years, still as a DD & still my only car.

When I tore the engine down after that to install flat top pistons, a larger cam, a victor jr, port the heads, etc., the valve seats were not beat to hell, & the engine was still running well. Maybe because back then I didn't know any better so I was running Valvoline Racing 20w50, so maybe that "cushioned" the lifter bleed-down rate a bit so the closing events were so violent. But I do know the car had a mildly rough idle when cold with the Rhodes lifters (Sig Erson tq20 cam) but after the oil warmed up & the "crickets" came to life, the idle smoothed & the power brakes worked better. It ran decent, by no means a power house, but it pulled good to 5500 & of course I turned it much higher than that as I was young & dumb.

[gottago]

Once upon a time Rhoads designed a cam to go with their high bleed down lifters. That cam was similar to a solid lifter profile. I've used rhoads in the past with mixed results. Not all cams respond well to using rhoads. Lifter bores need to be good, oil viscosity can affect their action drastically as well spring pressures etc.. I've seen noticeable increases in mileage if that is ones goal.

[PackardV8]

Rhoads lifters work very well....when they are mated with the right cam. For a street driven car, they allow use of a larger duration cam that with std lifters would have otherwise have a rough idle; with the Rhoads, idle quality & vacuum is improved. You could also get a mileage & low speed torque improvement.

Can you define "right cam for Rhoads?" Many here say there isn't one, but for the good of the order, give us what would work best.

[ZIGGY]

"Once upon a time Rhoads designed a cam to go with their high bleed down lifters"
This one? http://www.rhoadslifters.com/Pages/CamKit.html
I suppose by definition it's not a solid lifter cam.

[Geoff2]

In the original Rhoads literature, they advised against using their lifters with the then new generation of short seat timing cams, such as Comp Cams High Energy series. With the HE lobes, the Rhoads lifters simply had less time to bleed down, so the benefit was less noticeable. With longer seat timing, more duration was removed at idle & lower rpms, for a noticeable improvement in idle quality, vacuum & low rpm performance; at higher rpms the longer seat timing helped top end hp.

[CamKing]

A lot of circle track engine builders run the Rhoads V-Max lifters on Mechanical(solid) flat tappet cams. Either for classes that require a hydr cam, or classes that have a vacuum rule. For both of these applications, they work very well.

[gottago]

"Once upon a time Rhoads designed a cam to go with their high bleed down lifters"
This one? http://www.rhoadslifters.com/Pages/CamKit.html
I suppose by definition it's not a solid lifter cam.

Yes that's the only cam rhoads ever sold to go with their lifters. It was a hydraulic but I was told by our local cam grinder that the ramp profile on it was quite similar to a solid ft cam. So I would assume they could run fine on a solid that had some duration. Rhoads cam seat to seat duration was significant, something like 296 / 312 on a 104 lsa. The vmax were very adjustable on that cam. If you had the time and maybe a few sets of differing ratio rocker arms, you could experiment til the cows came home. In the end you would probably only come closer to discovering what cam you should have run in the first place.

Rhoads tried to produce a product that in theory would have been a good way to go for a daily driver street type machine. You could get a reasonably smooth idle with that cam when set up right and there was a handful of torque just waiting to be tapped. That cam was rough as hell and a bitch to drive otherwise without the vmax bleed down lifters. Or maybe I'm just getting too old to have the piss shook out of me like that anymore.

They have a place if you can get them to work with your application imo.