clutterhead
Newbie
Hello,
I am swapping an L31 roller cam into a flat tappet TBI. I have everything to do the swap. Cam, retainer plates/ lifter brackets, lifters, pushrods, and springs with spring retainers from a roller cam block. I have a question about the stock rocker arms though. I am finding conflicting info on if the stock flat tappet rockers are ok to use. I've read that they are, but then I came across a video of someone doing the swap. The only difference is he is swapping the smog heads to vortec heads, which I am not doing. In the video, he explains that the rocker arms also need to be replaced when doing the roller cam swap because they have slots where the rocker contacts the valve that prevent the pushrod from allowing the rocker to have side to side play when the engine is running. The reason he says this happens is that the pushrods have no guides in the heads as they would in a stock flat tappet setup. I'm confused because my heads don't have guides either. Just a hole in the stock smog heads that go down into the lifter. When I look up the difference in stock rocker arms for a roller cam engine they indeed are different. Yet I find people saying you can use the old rockers from the flat tappet cam. Which is correct?
The video for reference. About 2 mins in:
Video
Thanks
I am swapping an L31 roller cam into a flat tappet TBI. I have everything to do the swap. Cam, retainer plates/ lifter brackets, lifters, pushrods, and springs with spring retainers from a roller cam block. I have a question about the stock rocker arms though. I am finding conflicting info on if the stock flat tappet rockers are ok to use. I've read that they are, but then I came across a video of someone doing the swap. The only difference is he is swapping the smog heads to vortec heads, which I am not doing. In the video, he explains that the rocker arms also need to be replaced when doing the roller cam swap because they have slots where the rocker contacts the valve that prevent the pushrod from allowing the rocker to have side to side play when the engine is running. The reason he says this happens is that the pushrods have no guides in the heads as they would in a stock flat tappet setup. I'm confused because my heads don't have guides either. Just a hole in the stock smog heads that go down into the lifter. When I look up the difference in stock rocker arms for a roller cam engine they indeed are different. Yet I find people saying you can use the old rockers from the flat tappet cam. Which is correct?
The video for reference. About 2 mins in:
Video
Thanks