anyone running solid lifters in their chevies? i'm thinking of goiing to a solid lifter cam in my mercruiser 4-banger. getting tired of hydraulic lifter problems. at least then i'll know it's supposed to clatter!

I run solid lifters in my 250 inline Chevy.
Works great!
I have run solids for at least 15 years.
With a solid cam you can tighten or you can set the lash a little looser,which in turn will give you more or less top end ,better low end, depends on how you adjust them.

Sounds great.
You can basically get away w/10 degrees more duration @ .050 w/a solid cam over a hydraulic.

Let's say you run a hydrualic cam w/230, degrees duration .050, pretty rough idle.
You could run a solid cam w/240 degrees duration & have roughly the same type of ldle.
But w/a solid cam,, they open & close the valves much quicker,more agressive,more power everywhere!!!
Highly recogmended!
But you do have to adjust your valve lash .

I also run soild lifters in my everyday driver 250. Everybody told me that they had to be adjusted too often but it works out to about 1500 miles between adjustments, and the performance gains were really good.

Dear Dennis;

Most of us run solids in our land based Hot Rods.

I would stay with what the factory put in your marine engine & solve the 'problem' you have.

My guess would be that they (lifters) only need a proper adjustment. Remember; tighten one more turn after 'zero'. This is the most common mistake.

Your in a cold climate, so run multi-grade oil too.

Good luck.

thanx everyone. i used to run solids back in the '50 and early '60s, but got away from them later on. the promise of low maintenance and noise was my reasoning, i guess. i'm about ready to go back to solids.

i've readjusted the lifters twice, now....even replaced one that i thought was the culprit. no change, d**n! when the engine's cold, sometimes a couple will rattle, then stop after warning up. sometimes, the dang thing will rattle when hot. it runs really well and has plenty of power, but the intermittant rocker arm clatter irritates me. i have checked the oil pressure with two gauges... they both show 30lbs at idle, when hot. i'm using 10W-30 valvoline, after thinking the 5W-30 may have been too thin for the lifters.

glad to hear that i'm not hanging onto too much old technology by going back to solids!