Needlebearings on Camshaft

R

Randy N Connie

Registered User
Has anyone use needle-bearings inplace of the regular cam bearings?

With the use of needle bearings on the cam,would the oil pressure
need to be restricted any other place in the motor?



Thanks Randy
 
I run roller cam bearings in both of my race motors. It already restricts the cam journal passages obviously.

Anyways, Yes, you have to tap the oil passages in the lifter bores and put restrictor plugs in it. Since the oil will be blocked from the cam journals it increases the oil pressure to every other part of the motor meaning that the lifter bore oil pressure will be higher and is unneeded.

Roller bearings are great in the sense that main and rod bearing life is longer and less drag on the crank.

I gained about 10-15 crank hp on every motor I do.
 
Some of The bearings that I have looked have oiling holes in the side.
So some oil would flow through the bearings ,but less that the stock
cam bearing.

I have replaced cam bushings with torrington bearings in other motors
but not an automotive application.

I was thinking of asking INDY CYLINDERHEADS for info and if they could do some machine work for this swap.They do this type bearing swap on there motors build-ups.

I did not know about, or if I would need to restrict the oil in other areas,
and or where?

Thanks Randy
 
Randy N Connie said:
Some of The bearings that I have looked have oiling holes in the side.
So some oil would flow through the bearings ,but less that the stock
cam bearing.

I have replaced cam bushings with torrington bearings in other motors
but not an automotive application.

I was thinking of asking INDY CYLINDERHEADS for info and if they could do some machine work for this swap.They do this type bearing swap on there motors build-ups.

I did not know about, or if I would need to restrict the oil in other areas,
and or where?

Thanks Randy
Click to expand...
The roller cam bearings I use are Torrington's also. My machinist here in Indy has the tooling for boring out the cam journals. If you would like, I could set something up for one of your blocks to be machined by my machinist. The price he does it for I am not sure of.

The only place that needs restricted is the lifter bore oil galleries, in which, I described in my previous post.
 
I have been looking for a place to do some machine work for my block.
Indy is about 200 miles from me.That would be close enough.

Not for sure yet.But I think I may need to have the block machined for the bearings,and then the cam machined to fit the bearing. I planed to get a cam ground at Comp-Cams.I have not check to see if they will grind the cam bearing journals to then fit the torrington cam bearings.

I have not desided yet,But I may run soild roller lifters.I think I have
some stock around to make my own solid lifters. Used to make and sell
adjustable titainium lifter bodies with steel rollers with TIN coating..
Going with carbonfiber pushrods if I do a build.

CMac89 It would be farout if you could get some pricing from your machinest
on cam line-bore.

Thanks Randy
 
For the low RPM that we run, do you feel it's really worth the effort? I thought about it, but feel improving the valvetrain to support higher rpm would be necessary first.

I'd have the engine machinist deal with machining the cam to fit the bearings. If anything, get Comp to give you a blank that is more raw at the bearing surfaces so your machinist can do the final fit with the parts in hand.
 
Most hp gains have been around 6500rpm on each motor. Most cams have near the same journal size, but that is an easy part. If you supply a roller bearing to a machinist all they will do is grind the cam journal down to a couple thousandths below the ID of the roller bearing.

Regarless of the RPM's the roller bearing helps. It has allowed me to bump up to a 440lb closed and 1300lb open valve spring safely with no problems.
 
Mike8675309 said:
For the low RPM that we run, do you feel it's really worth the effort? I thought about it, but feel improving the valvetrain to support higher rpm would be necessary first.

.
Click to expand...

Mike the motors that I have done a bushing convertion to rollerbearings.
Has allways yeild more horse power.But mainly in part it helps the RPMs
to rise faster.

My main reason to lighten a valve train system.Is so I cam run lighter valve spring pressures. If I run lighter pushrods, lifters, valve spring,spring collars,
rocherarms, etc. And this enables me to run 25lbs less per spring pressure. This is around 300lbs, less valve spring pressure working against my motor.

The torrington bearings in place of the stock bearings, Will let the motor turn on faster.The bearing take less oil.I can send this extra oil & oil pressure
to some other place that needs more oil.

Mike I don't plan to raise my red line. I plan to get to my red line faster,
than others.

Thanks Randy
 
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RBH Racing said:
WHOA MAMA THAT'S SOME SPRING PRESSURE! No harmonic issues on the pushrods?
Click to expand...
LOL! Everybody calls me crazy for running them, but it don't stop revving. I use 9.700" long, 3/8", .120 wall thickness Smith Brothers pushrods. Those damn springs won't let me use 5/16 pushrods so I had to put bigger pushrod tubes in and it hurt my cross sectional area on the port:mad: . Oh well.

I run the LSM L1000 "Annihilators" on a 2.200 installed height. Only run them on the intakes though because it would be a waste to put them on exhaust.

http://lsmeng.com/Springs.html
 
CMac89 said:
LOL! Everybody calls me crazy for running them, but it don't stop revving. I use 9.700" long, 3/8", .120 wall thickness Smith Brothers pushrods. Those damn springs won't let me use 5/16 pushrods so I had to put bigger pushrod tubes in and it hurt my cross sectional area on the port:mad: . Oh well.

I run the LSM L1000 "Annihilators" on a 2.200 installed height. Only run them on the intakes though because it would be a waste to put them on exhaust.

http://lsmeng.com/Springs.html
Click to expand...

lsml1000= gay

randy i work in efingham from time to time for the rail road. csx
 
Someone said that restrictor plugs would have to be added to the lifter galleys, is this absolutely necessary? I think a little more oil to the top end wouldint hurt, unless of course it would be better suited to the bottom end. Any ideas?
 
Randy N Connie said:
Has anyone use needle-bearings inplace of the regular cam bearings?

With the use of needle bearings on the cam,would the oil pressure
need to be restricted any other place in the motor?

Thanks Randy
Click to expand...
Randy, one of the 4.5 blocks that I bought uses camshaft needle roller bearings and they actually ground down the camshaft bearing surface to a smaller OD and the OD of the needle bearings are visually the same as a standard bearing OD. Oil is restricted with oil restricters at the rear oil feeds to the lifters. (corrected should have been lifters not cam shaft bearings) Now I suppose restricting oil to the camshaft would be a good thing if using needle bearings as they do not have the oil requirements of a oil film bearing.
Mike Tuck
 
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Super XR7 said:
Randy, one of the 4.5 blocks that I bought uses camshaft needle roller bearings and they actually ground down the camshaft bearing surface to a smaller OD and the OD of the needle bearings are visually the same as a standard bearing OD. Oil is restricted with oil restricters at the rear oil feeds to the camshaft bearings.
Mike Tuck
Click to expand...

Thanks mike. I have not takin the time to measure the block or the camshaft.
I did not know if bearings would fit the block with or without machining larger.
I did know that most likley the cam would need to be ground down to fit the bearings.And maybe have the cam reheat treated.

My main consurn was where and how to restick oil.

Thanks Randy
 
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A couple of things here Randy. Why would you restrict the lifter oil? I would not do that. I would restrict the cams oil galley. Next, how is the streetability of this? See...I asked about this back in college and was told that there were few bennies to running a roller bearing for the cam because you run the risk of gnalling up a roller and trashing the cam on a street engine.

As far as where to put the oil....OH I HAVE IDEAS....first, drill through to the crank oil galley and have it shoot at the bottom of the piston as seen on Lightning blocks that are built by Jim D'Amore (SP). Next...drill through the rod with the same intent to hit the OTHER side of the piston. If you could keep your oil at the 180* mark, AND spray the bottom of the piston with somthing (of course it would be warmer) close to that, think of the timing you could run. That and with the coolant mod to the rear of the head? WOW...I see an additional 10 rwhp from just the cooler cyl parts.

Chris
 
On that same note: The needle bearings wont take as much oil, and more will be directed upstairs where it will cool the heads better, thus keeping the intake charge cooler and the motor happier.
 
seawalkersee said:
A couple of things here Randy. Why would you restrict the lifter oil? I would not do that. I would restrict the cams oil galley. Next, how is the streetability of this? See...I asked about this back in college and was told that there were few bennies to running a roller bearing for the cam because you run the risk of gnalling up a roller and trashing the cam on a street engine.
Click to expand...
The reason for restricting the lifter gallery is because the oil that goes to the cam is blocked off, in which, increases the pressure quite dramatically to the lifter gallery. If you run a roller cam bearing you physically can't run a restrictor in the cams oil gallery because the bearing completely blocks the passage off.

If you run a restrictor in the lifter galleries after blocking off the oil supply to the cam then the same amount of oil gets to the lifters. So everything breaks even and there's no problem there. So what's your point?
 
Not soo much a point as it is a question. I am not question the fact that you do it either. It was more of a for my information. I wonder what the increase will be on a 6 cyl now.

With that being said, there is one less journal for the cam to ride on. I would think that the free HP would be greater now espically with forced induction.

Chris
 
seawalkersee said:
Not soo much a point as it is a question. I am not question the fact that you do it either. It was more of a for my information. I wonder what the increase will be on a 6 cyl now.

With that being said, there is one less journal for the cam to ride on. I would think that the free HP would be greater now espically with forced induction.

Chris
Click to expand...
Sorry for the misunderstanding, Chris.

No I don't know how much HP this will free up, nor does anybody on any application. Any motor I have built for me or anybody else, the numbers are different. I have seen anywhere from 8hp minimum to 18hp maximum. The main Pro I look at is substantially increasing the oil available to the crank. How much hp do you think it takes away whenever you are even minisculely eating bearings?

Also, There is one less journal, but there are also two less cylinders, so that just cancels out and drags just as much. Now if there was the same amount of journals on a V8 as there is on a V6 then you would gain something, ignorantly speaking.
 
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