What do you think about the roller-tip rocker arms that are being developed by Arrington? This has been one area I have always wanted to address on my motor even though there aren't many failures that I am aware of with the stockers...not really sure why I feel that way but after taking my rocker shafts off and on a few times and rolling my motor over and watching the valvetrain operate it just *looks* like it will come apart at any time. $1200 seems ridiculous but the pic I saw looks sweet.
There is a thread on the blue site and this was posted by Arrington. They did say these were heavier than the production units would probably be...
They're nice and all, but without adjustability you're really gaining very little in terms of performance. Now an adjustable roller rocker would mean we could use solid lifters and ability to adjust lash, that would mean REAL power.
I agree on the adjustability issue. The majority of people going with upgraded engines (me included) are just bolting the stock stuff back on and don't or wouldn't go as far as considering solid lifters and adjusting the valve lash though. I have .598" (1.6) of lift and intimately watching the rocker tip slide across the valve tip just didn't give me a warm fuzzy as I rolled my motor over. If having a roller on the rocker tip would decrease the wear at the valve tip over the long haul I would be all over that.
Are they still 1.65 RR? Adjustable would be helpful to, but if you can do a moansta cam, and rev to the moon with these, they have benefit.
No, they're 1.72 ratio. Stockers are 1.70-1.71 at max, so they're essentially stock replacements just without the varying ratio of the swipe rocker.
I thought about coating the tips for extended wear life this last round, but good intentions get you no where. That's a plus...Question is, is it worth the price.
all of the aftermarket rockers that are coming out are too heavy IMO. At PPP when we were working with Ferrea to develop a valvetrain that would handle high rpms, they tested a set of PPP stage 2 heads with a Ferrea valvetrain using dual springs and stock rockers. They subjected the heads to 8500rpm and 650 lift. After this was complete, the did an Finite Element Analysis on the rockers and found no additional wear or fatigue. Further more, the entire valvetrain had as much stability at 8500rpm as it had at 5500rpm. Knowing this, I will stick with the lightweight rockers and looks for just a bar upgrade. Look at the C5R corvette rockers, they are just like our stock rockers.
