cam followers

[Guest]

I am going to be freshening up a 83 1100 motor and have been pricing out my rebuild. I will be adding aftermarket cams. For a streetable motor how important is it to have the cam followers hard welded and ground. Will it really eat the chrome off the stock followers and destroy the cams if I run stock ? This option really adds to the cost and was looking to those with experience for advice.

[gearhead13]

I have heard of guys running stock rockers with bigger cams and aftermarket springs, and I have heard horror stories about both the cams and rockers getting chewed up. Partly depends on how much spring pressure you run, but eventually they will fail IMO. GSXR rockers are an option. I picked up a set of gsxf 1100 rockers from ebay, they are supposed to be made of better material:

http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/showthread.php?t=163710&page=3

[blowerbike]

i have never ran anything other than stock rockers with the bumps knocked off.
seat pressure is the key.
are the other rockers better??
yes.
does any of this matter on a street bike??
no.

[trippivot]

stockers are perfectly fine for most applications.

I think the horror stories about running thru the chrome are from bad engine builders. I'd venture a guess.... No I won't , you'll just want to argue about inferior materials over mistaken interference clearances.

I personally have never seen it happen. I use different oils, I have stiff springs on my valves with pretty high seat pressures, I run up to 11,000 rpm. my gear looks new on the inside after miles and miles of serious abuse.

[posplayr]

I have been running stock (low mileage) followers, APE street springs and Webcam 0.340" lift cams. The Webcam 0.348" could be substituted if you want more top end but I'm sure mileage will suffer.

I'm running right at about 35mpg with 1166, 4:2:1, 36mm CV (jetted at 140 Mikuni).

As is my 1100ED lifts the front wheel pretty easily in 1st and second.

Chef1366 has the same (arms,followers,springs) in his 1230 and both of our cams/followers look fine after 5k miles. I have a top end oiler and he doesnt.

edit: I think bumps need to be ground for the 0.348"s but discussing streetablity with a guy running them, he said these cams work well although they go quite a bit further in top end hp than the 0.340's.

Ray can describe his experience in comparing 0.340" to 0.348" webcams