Roller cam bearings

Discussion in 'Race 400/430/455' started by Briz, Sep 25, 2019.

  1. Briz

    Briz Founders Club Member

    Was watching a you tube vid where Fryburger was showing off a 1000 hp BBC based engine. He mentioned a 55mm cam tunnel and installing roller cam bearings. Seems like a good idea and it got me to thinking about the 54mm cam tunnel in the Tomahawk blocks. If theres no blanks available why not go this route? Orrrrr maybe I am missing something?
     
  2. Julian

    Julian Well-Known Member

    I believe someone put a 60 mm roller cam bearing in tomahawk block.. is it worth the game? That still remains to be seen. I remember NASCAR was doing this back in the late 80s 90s

    TA offered the option to me.
     
  3. GS Kubisch

    GS Kubisch THE "CUT-UP" BUICK

    My engine is probably an 85-90 percent effort... Meaning I left a few things on the table that I felt may not be worth the effort.

    Roller cam bearings were one of them.
     
  4. Daves 71 GS

    Daves 71 GS Well-Known Member

    The bearing size is not the problem with the cores it is the size of the billet that has to be machined because of the flange on the front for the cam gear.And of course supply and demand.We need say 25 cam cores while say NASCAR,top fuel,and others may need 100's of cores.We get moved down the to the bottom of the list
     
  5. 300sbb_overkill

    300sbb_overkill WWG1WGA. MAGA

    Anyone consider making their own Tomahawk cam core? Anyone half way decent on an lathe should be able to make one. You can use a sbb 350 removable distributor gear, just make sure to swap to the corresponding gear on the 455 distributor if you are even going to use a distributor?

    That would get rid of the wait time for a cam core.
     
  6. GS Kubisch

    GS Kubisch THE "CUT-UP" BUICK

    My cam core has a BBC snout...

    But my intention was to get away from the factory front cover, timing chain, and distributor.
     
  7. Julian

    Julian Well-Known Member

    Go to yellowbullet about roller cam bearing
     
  8. slimfromnz

    slimfromnz Kiwi Abroad

    We looked at the roller bearing option when we rebuilt it, but with my block, the tunnel would have to be machined out a lot to get the bearings in there. Have heard of failures with the roller bearings, so we just left it alone.
     
    Julian likes this.
  9. slimfromnz

    slimfromnz Kiwi Abroad

    Wish I had done that Gary
     
  10. 300sbb_overkill

    300sbb_overkill WWG1WGA. MAGA

    That makes it even easier to machine!
     
  11. Julian

    Julian Well-Known Member


    Anyone run those belt drives on a road track car?
     
  12. GS Kubisch

    GS Kubisch THE "CUT-UP" BUICK

    I've seen them with covers for circle track stuff.

    Of course a BBB application would be a custom version.

    Scott Brown got me Cam cores and provided the specs to make big power.

    Here's my spare blank. 0929191906.jpg
     
  13. Julian

    Julian Well-Known Member

    Gary.. are you still using 54 mm core? Scott told was going to have bigger cores made for BBB.

    Back to the distributor belt drive. I'd love to have a competition from TC sans the oil pump and filter assembly like what Buick did for the Stage 2 V6 or just get away from the TV completely.
     
    Last edited: Sep 30, 2019
  14. Bens99gtp

    Bens99gtp Well-Known Member

    Man those blanks look goofy with all that meat still on them
     
    Briz likes this.
  15. Todd69GS

    Todd69GS Silver Level contributor

    Front belt drive can be made up but everything is custom.
    Apparantly it was way to much to ask for TA to come up with some parts to go along with the blocks. But hey.....we got 350 heads now.
     
  16. 300sbb_overkill

    300sbb_overkill WWG1WGA. MAGA

    Yeah,wonder what kind of power it would make "as is"?:eek:
     
  17. SS/GN

    SS/GN Well-Known Member

    No HP in roller cam bearings, dynode this with a friends superstocker and I watched a grown man cry after it made nothings. His eyes teared up as he watched his bank account take a beating. Oh and don't try the roller bearing in the tail stock of the trans either.
     
  18. Tom Righter

    Tom Righter Well-Known Member

    Would never run roller cam bearings,If or when they fail it’s like grenades going off taking way too many parts out ! I use calico coated cam bearings In my 54 mm T/A block that you can get from Kasse Racing, they are on his website. These are the ones that John uses in all his builds!
     
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  19. Julian

    Julian Well-Known Member

    I read all the horror stories about roller bearings okay Yellowbullet.
     

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