Rhoads lifters

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arh

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i have read some older posts and it seems people were happy with them. my 360 runs very well but idles pretty rough with the hughes whiplash cam. will the rhoads smooth out the idle?
will there be a noticable improvement in low rpm performance. motor is in a 69 barracuda convert. 904, 7.25 with 2.76 gears
 
Yes, they will help.

they bleed down at idle and take out approx. 15° duration and .025" lift. You get the full lift and duration out of them by 3500 rpm.

I used them on a 340 with a .484/284 MP cam. With standard lifters, it would have a choppy idle at 1100 rpm. With the rhoades lifters I can idle much smoother at 800 rpm now (still has that lopey sound).

You will get smoother idle, more low and mid range performance and torque. I've used them for over 25 years now and put over 250,000 on a set of them.

Read the second article here to see how they work:

http://www.rhoadslifters.com/Pages/Articles.html


You can get them at summit racing:

http://www.summitracing.com/search?SortBy=BestKeywordMatch&SortOrder=Ascending&keyword=rhoades 2018
 
They are made to tame radical high-lift cams at low rpm. Read more on Rhoads website. I was reading recently about Fiat's "multi-air" engine design (2.4L Chrysler 200). It is basically an electronic version of the Rhoads lifter, i.e. an electrically-controlled leak-down lifter. One good question is why Rhoads were never used in factory engines. My guess is that production cams were not wild enough to benefit greatly, and perhaps they worried about owners who let their oil get gunky which could clog the leak-down passages so they don't work right.

I put Rhoads lifters in my 273 but haven't run the engine much, plus a fairly mild cam (0.422/0.440 lift) so harder to notice an effect. I have another set I might put in my 383. I got both sets fairly cheap on ebay. Too bad I can't use them in my slant (no oil supply at lifters)
 
BillGrissom said:
They are made to tame radical high-lift cams at low rpm. Read more on Rhoads website. I was reading recently about Fiat's "multi-air" engine design (2.4L Chrysler 200). It is basically an electronic version of the Rhoads lifter, i.e. an electrically-controlled leak-down lifter. One good question is why Rhoads were never used in factory engines. My guess is that production cams were not wild enough to benefit greatly, and perhaps they worried about owners who let their oil get gunky which could clog the leak-down passages so they don't work right.

I put Rhoads lifters in my 273 but haven't run the engine much, plus a fairly mild cam (0.422/0.440 lift) so harder to notice an effect. I have another set I might put in my 383. I got both sets fairly cheap on ebay. Too bad I can't use them in my slant (no oil supply at lifters)
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I don't think that OEM's used Rhoades lifters because they didn't have enough volume to support some of the engines.


There's more to being a supplier to a car manufacturer than you think. Lots of responsibility and liability, if you are a small shop, and make a mistake, the OEM would own you.


For the minivan engine alone was 500,000 engines per year times 12 lifters per engine. That would be 6 million lifters per year alone just for one engine family. I'm not sure if Rhoades can handle that volume alone, much less get more engines and more manufacturers to sign up.
 
arh said:
i have read some older posts and it seems people were happy with them. my 360 runs very well but idles pretty rough with the hughes whiplash cam. will the rhoads smooth out the idle?
will there be a noticable improvement in low rpm performance. motor is in a 69 barracuda convert. 904, 7.25 with 2.76 gears
Click to expand...

It'll work well for you. IMO,'change the cam first for a wider separation like 112.
 
What's your compression ratio? The Whiplash cams are ground to maximize cylinder pressure as well as sound good. Rhoads lifters shorten the duration up which will also raise cylinder pressure. The two together might get you in trouble on pump gas.
 
9 to 1 with a fresh set of stock J heads, performer rpm and an Edelbrock 650.
 
I've wondered about the rhodes lifters for years. How annoying is the tick?
 
If I were you, I would run a compression test before you swap lifters.
 
How much compression would be too much to run the Rhoads?
 
What's the timing on the engine, more specifically initial timing.

That cam is not that big and will idle choppy, but, should be easily tunable. IMO, rhoads are a waste of money trying to smooth out that cam. A good baseline tune will help a ton.
 
Something else is going on. No way that cam in a 360 should require a 1000rpm idle.

Is timing dropping out when it's in gear?
 
65cuda360 said:
I've wondered about the rhodes lifters for years. How annoying is the tick?
Click to expand...
Depends on what you consider annoying. The tick is audible. If you use a short pushrod, it gets louder.

arh said:
How much compression would be too much to run the Rhoads?
Click to expand...
No limit.
crackedback said:
Something else is going on. No way that cam in a 360 should require a 1000rpm idle.

Is timing dropping out when it's in gear?
Click to expand...

Yea, something's off.
 
It will idle lower but the whole car shakes
 
arh said:
It will idle lower but the whole car shakes
Click to expand...

What's inside that 360, guy? A video of it's problems, kind of helps(if possible). What you have for a combination helps, too.....
 
Ran them in my previous motor, no problems and the definitely help low end torque. Just have to get used to the ticking.
 
If I were to run the rhoads lifters with this whiplash cam, I would only run them on the exhaust side.

Note for all reading this. Please LEARN FROM MY MISTAKE!!!! Do not use them to "tame" a big cam on a higher compression engine. That was a bad day for me. Detonated the crap out of one of my race engines and this was the end result. SHAT Happens.
 

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OOFf ! ^^^ Always used them,as a tuning tool to close that overcammed I.C earlier.
 
Have them in my 340 with an Isky cam and they work awesome....and they don't make any noise :glasses7:
 
Just finished installing them. Huge difference in idle quality. Little to no noise. Only drove it around the block so far. Have not noticed a loss or gain in power. Really helps stopped at a light in gear. No more shaking. Very pleased so far.
 
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