351w roller cam conversion

Depends... what year is the block?


The stock 302 lifters can work with a reduced base circle cam.... but you are taking a risk with a less than stellar cam design...

Best option is to go with a set of link bar hyd lifters from a reputable company.
OR
Go with a solid roller setup...

slow95gt said:

I really like how a solid car sounds but I dont want to set lash everyother day, ill just do the link bars.

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Would you be puting a solid cam in a DD or is it just a toy?

go flat tappet and be done with it.... too much expence for what you gain...

What about the ford cams like the B303, the 351 does have the same cam bearings as the 302. That is what I am planning to do. I just put the spider in , punched the holes , drilled and tapped , and everything fits so far. I don't have the lifters yet , but after I change the cam bearings I will be putting the cam in to see how well everything goes together. The only thing I see to be a problem might be different length push rods , but I'm sure new push rods are cheaper than the 400+ dollar lifters. Does anyone know why this wouldn't work?

DADDYJUSTANG said:

What about the ford cams like the B303, the 351 does have the same cam bearings as the 302. That is what I am planning to do. I just put the spider in , punched the holes , drilled and tapped , and everything fits so far. I don't have the lifters yet , but after I change the cam bearings I will be putting the cam in to see how well everything goes together. The only thing I see to be a problem might be different length push rods , but I'm sure new push rods are cheaper than the 400+ dollar lifters. Does anyone know why this wouldn't work?

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AT max lift, look for the oil holes on the lifter to protrude from the lifter bore.
The non-roller blocks have shorter bores, and the oil passage on the lifter will expose.

Also, pull the oil galley plugs on the front and the back of the block to check that the oil relief/passage on the lifter remains coincident to the oil galley throughout the lift range...

So if the oil hole comes out of the lifter bore then when it does it would push up the dogbone in between the lifters. Well since you have shot my original plan all to hell. I know you cannot use a roller cam with a non-roller dist. , but can you use a roller dist. with a non-roller cam? Will it just eat the cam teeth up? Reason I ask is because I already have an MSD dist for F.I. and a roller cam. I still have the old dist. from the flat tappet so I could swap gears if I had to. But can I still use the B cam if I get those $400+ roller lifters?.... Man, now all night I am going to be wondering about this.

DADDYJUSTANG said:

So if the oil hole comes out of the lifter bore then when it does it would push up the dogbone in between the lifters. Well since you have shot my original plan all to hell. I know you cannot use a roller cam with a non-roller dist. , but can you use a roller dist. with a non-roller cam? Will it just eat the cam teeth up? Reason I ask is because I already have an MSD dist for F.I. and a roller cam. I still have the old dist. from the flat tappet so I could swap gears if I had to. But can I still use the B cam if I get those $400+ roller lifters?.... Man, now all night I am going to be wondering about this.

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Replace the dist drive gear if you need to... they're cheap...
Just call MSD... they'll send you the right one...

The problem with the lifter getting high in the bore, isn't so much what happens to the dogbone, but that the high pressure oil passage is exposed to the lifter valley.
Basically you end up spraying pressurized oil out of the lifter bore...


There are better cams... The Ford letter cams were designed a long time ago, and they were meant for 302's.....

Stick with a custom grind flat tappet and don't look back.

squeak93 said:

Stick with a custom grind flat tappet and don't look back.

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x2

Why would a B cam in a 351 be horrible? With the 1.7 roller rockers I have, it would be a .510 lift. I have had the B cam sitting on my shelf for a couple of years. I was going to put it in my mustang until my crankshaft broke in half and took the block with it, (where I got the spider and other roller cam parts from). My uncle had gotten this crown vic from a police auction and i made a swap with an old 81' F-100. I would really like to go roller for the reasons of wear and friction. I have taken out a fair share of flat tappet cams in my day, and not a single one came out where the lifters weren't domed from wear. The worst one I had I could put my thumb in and my thumbnail hit the edge of the lifter. Also a roller cam can have a much faster ramp than flat tappet due to the angles of the flat lifter. Like I said earlier I already have an MSD pro billet made for F.I. and a roller cam, and would like to keep on my original plan. Money is an issue for me and I want to do this as cheap as possible for right now. But if I have to buy some $439 lifters to keep my plan then thats what I'll do. I don't know of anyone with a B cam in a 351. If some one does, I would like to hear their opinion. Not that your opinion doesn't matter, I just want to hear from first hand experiance. Besides I can always get a custom grind cam later after the engine is in the car if it isn't strong enough for me. ( or maybe some giggle gas teehee)

Also, I thought about the oil spraying out , and loosing oil pressure at all rpm's on the bearings , and the lifter so you wouldn't even get full lift out of it. Not to mention a lot of oil spraying out up top could empty out the sump on high rpm runs and leave the engine spinning dry. That would be a catastrophe. I'm glad you told me about that now instead of finding out for myself and get the wrong lifters.

Either buy the proper lifters that are epensive or spend 300 on a custom flat tappet and lifter set that is made for YOU and you will be much happier than a b cam. A B cam is small for a 302, ur now will have 49 more cubic inches to feed air to. The gains of the roller cam will not offset the losses of the small outdated profile. Sell the cam for 50 bucks and go with the updated roller lifers and a small base circle cam or just call comp, have them grind u cam and run it hard. My 351 spun up to 7k with my custom grind flat tappet. It LOVED it. I ran rottella T oil and added comps break in additive every oil change. No wear at all on the cam/lifters.

Hows that for first hand experience. I can tell u that when we built my d4 block we also built a f4(roller) block the same night. You could see the differences in the lifterbores. Not a lot, but enough that it would put the oil holes out of the bore and cause bad problems.

Not exactly the type of first hand experiance I was talking about. You still never had a B cam in a 351 and drove it. Therefore you can't tell me how it felt from an easy take off, or from a roll or.... And as far as running thick diesel oil in your gas engine , I only run thicker oil in a worn out engine with low oil pressure issues. Also this cam is just a base cam to get the engine running and in the car. I am pretty sure The B cam is alot more aggressive than a stock crown vic cam.

The B cam sucks in a 302 (I have ran one) I wouldn't even waste my time puting one in a 351.