# which is better hydralic or solid lifter cams???



## marcmk2 (Dec 3, 2007)

also how do u tell if ur head is hydralic or solid lifter???
or could u put in either cam in head without knowing??


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## mk2gtilover (Dec 5, 2007)

*Re: which is better hydralic or solid lifter cams??? (marcmk2)*

what year and motor? do you have a bentley manual? you cant put a cam for solid in a hydro, well, you could, but your blow your head, valves and whatnot, dont do it.


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## Murnau (Oct 29, 2007)

*Re: which is better hydralic or solid lifter cams??? (marcmk2)*

If you're looking for your Mk2, then you want a hydraulic cam as you have a hydraulic lifter head. Replace the lifters while you're in there. USRT has nice, lightened Mk4 units for about the same price as the OE.
I have a TT268 cam for considerably less than what TT will charge you. PM me if you're interested.


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## marcmk2 (Dec 3, 2007)

its 86 8v cis-e gti
hydro or solid???
but the guy who i bought it from he siad its a solid lifter head but idk????
so idk how to tell???


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## ABA Scirocco (May 30, 2001)

*Re: (marcmk2)*

The stock head on an 86 GTi had hydrualic lifters. It is possible that a previous owner swapped on a solid lifter head. It's easy to tell which type you have by removing the valve cover and counting the cam bearing caps, a solid lifter head has 5 and the hydrualic lifter heads have 4.


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## karl_1052 (Feb 10, 2008)

*Re: (marcmk2)*

take off the cam cover.
Solid heads have 5 cam caps, hydraulic heads have 4 caps.


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## marcmk2 (Dec 3, 2007)

but can u take off that cam coover and put it right back on and it wont mess up ur timimg or anything????


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## marcmk2 (Dec 3, 2007)

wait do u mean the cam guides


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## Murnau (Oct 29, 2007)

*Re: (marcmk2)*


_Quote, originally posted by *marcmk2* »_but can u take off that cam coover and put it right back on and it wont mess up ur timimg or anything????

Please don't take offense when I say this, but if this car is your daily driver then you need to do more reading before you consider a swap. In taking the cam cover off you will probably have to replace the gasket (your local store will have it referred to as a valve cover gasket, no doubt). It's as good a time as any to replace it with a rubber one, so you can stop spraying your engine with oil in between replacing the cork one.
I don't know why, but it took me forever to find an 8v with its cam cover off. My googling skillz sux 2day.








Ok, this is a picture of an engine with its cam cover off (it also has a rubber cam cover gasket!). The long metal rod with the lobes that runs down the middle of it is your camshaft. Underneath of it are 8 shiny round bits - these are your lifters. The things you want to count are the towers which hold the cam into place (they have nuts holding them into place and the two foremost have script on them). This example has 4, marking it as a hydraulic lifter head. 
You'll notice if you look closely that the cam cover gasket travels all the way around the top of the head. The camshaft bolt - which connects the camshaft sprocket to the camshaft - can be seen at the very bottom right of the picture. The timing belt loops over the camshaft sprocket, so in order to mess up your timing you'd have to mess with that. But, as you can see, the cam cover rests over top of all that, so no worries. Just pop the mother off. And don't overtorque it when you put it back on, or it'll warp and leak forever.
Notice also that there are 8 rather large holes below the cam cover - these are your intake and exhaust ports. As they probably will be with your car (unless a swap has occurred), they are both on the same side of the head. This is known as a counterflow head. On a crossflow head, one side would have intake ports and the other side would have exhaust ports. You can use either for your ABA swap, and there are benefits to both. The benefit to a counterflow head, especially in your case, is that you don't have to worry about rerouting anything - you just swap blocks. Crossflow heads are generally thought of as better for performance, but there is a huge discussion on this forum every three days or so as to how true that is, so you can read up on it for yourself at your leisure.
Again, before you start anything I would suggest doing a lot of research in your home forum (mk2 Golf & Jetta). Those guys know their stuff and have done a lot of swaps. There will be all manner of posting about it and there is great info in their FAQ, too. Make sure, too, that you have the Bentley for your car and for whatever car from which your engine was sourced.
Good luck and have fun!


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## ABA Scirocco (May 30, 2001)

*Re: (Murnau)*

With apologies to the good people at Bentley Publishing, here's a page scanned from my Scirocco manual showing a solid lifter head. There are a few things to point out first, notice the 5 bearing caps, next, you'll notice the word "cam follower" in this context, that's just another way of saying "lifter" and finally, you see it says "Hydrualic cam followers installed on 1988 and later models", that's because this is from a manual for Sciroccos and Cabriolets, Golfs and Jettas had hydrualic cam followers installed on *1985* and later models. 
BTW, anyone that plans to do any significant amount of work on their VW should have a Bentley manual for their model car.










_Modified by ABA Scirocco at 11:28 AM 5-2-2008_


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