hydraulic roller conversion using factory lifters. anyone seen this conversion done?
 

just wondering if anyone has seen this conversion done. This concept is stolen from a longtime Pontiac friend of mine who has several of these setups running with thousands of miles street and track. I am putting this one together for my test mule engine has a comp 276hr cam. I am working through what all lifters will work without oil band issues. The spider hold downs are not what will be in this engine they are just to hold them in place for mock up and finessing.

what spider ws used

Interesting idea, didn't the later olds 307's use roller lifters which should be at least close to the pontiac oil band location?

SBF

spider
 

spider is small block ford with some tweaking. Dog bones are also sbf with some mods to the bottom to clear the block radius. Lifters are a gm factory roller lifter for a 60 degree v6. There are also some gm v8 lifters that will work. Im working on some other lifters now waiting on them to get here to verify dimensions.

I've been thinking about trying something like this. Thanks for sharing

Didn't the Olds diesel have hydraulic roller lifters ?
Maybe a natural fit there.

A long time ago saw one in a junk yard apart but that was a long time ago and maybe iam recalling incorrectly

I thought the same thing back in the 80s, the diesel block has much larger diameter lifter bores than the gas olds engines do. 1981 was the first year for the roller lifters in the 5.7 olds diesel.

We had a warranty diesel engine core in the buick service department that I was working at. I was going to remove the roller lifter from to try them in one of my Pontiacs, As soon as I removed one it was obvious that they were much larger diameter than the gas engine lifters are.

Now that's a neat idea all around..

The spiders could be made exact fits slicing and dicing and tig welding the pieces back together.

Question, Maybe I'm missing it, but how will you now bolt the valley pan down if the threaded holes for those bolts are now used for the spider?

I was thinking about that too, the op said it was a temporary setup for mock up but i think you could just use studs and nuts to get it done.

Studs is the obvious answer, but a pair of studded bolts would be better. Straightforward
enough, as long as they don't touch the cam bearing. Maybe a little Loctite, just because.

I built solid roller lifters for the hemi V8 starting with early SBF HR lifters. I made press-in sleeves with cups to match the hemi pushrod angles. The anti-rotation guides aren't pretty, but they work well.

Wow! This is a great concept. I really like the idea of using factory parts. I notice the "spider" seems like it is a sort of springy steel and the curl at each leg presses down the "dogbone". Would it be possible to make a similar sort of clip for each position that simply anchored on the underside of the material between the bores? If you get my meaning, eight "C" clips (well, if they still had the springy foldover on top I guess they would be sort of lower-case "e" clips) instead of two spiders? And then you would have no problems securing the valley pan either, right?

Sam

Securing the spider, A quality all thread ABOUT 5-6 inch length, thread it into the block drop the spider over it run a lock nut down then install the pushrod cover with flanged nuts dab some silicone around the nuts

What is the rest of the combo?

Makes sense. Never even occurred to me to attempt this with Pontiac. I never saw the advantage really other than maybe a little cheaper retro fit.

I've done this with early small block fords because the new spider and dog bone parts interchange without modification, and it saved quite a bit of money over the retro rollers for the early Fords.

Here's a 69 351 Windsor I converted to roller with factory Ford parts. Spider and dog bone is only $55 from Ford Performance, and the lifters are only $120.
What I thought was cool was that the block is 50 years old and no mods necessary, the newer parts fell right in. Yet they still sell retro rollers for these things.

Might be dumb ?, but I'm a flat tapett man, never messed with a roller. Does this lower the cost of going to a roller?

valley cover bolts
 

The valley cover will be mounted with studs that will hold down the spider also. I am fabricating a rectangle washer to put below the locknut to help make sure the spider doesn't twist. I will post more pics once the final assembly is done. Hope to get it finished up and running soon. will keep everyone posted and also update as I check the other lifters for compatibility.