New rockers on v-6

[BigBlue]

Hey yall. Buddy of mine and I were sitting around talking about his truck and I got to thinking bout a new set of roller rockers for his truck. The truck has a powerdyne throttle body spacer, a volant cold air intake, and flowmaster dual exhaust. He's looking for a little more power that won't cost and arm and a leg. How hard is it to do a rocker arm swap? What ratio would yall suggest? I'm fairly mechanically inclined (I've done just about everything except and engine/tranny swap) but have never done this. I've done a cam swap though. This truck is his everyday truck so it needs to be reliable and very driveable. Would I need to buy any special tools to set them up? How much would a new set cost? Any links on where I could buy some? I know I'm gonna need a torque wrench. What kind of power gains would I expect to see from this? I've heard around 10-15. Thanks for the help yall. Oh yeah. I think he has the 4.6L V-6? That sound right. The truck is a 99-00 GMC 2wd automatic. Thanks for the help yall.

[juztyn]

actually its a 4.3... not really sure never replaced rockers...

[BigBlue]

Thanks for the help on the engine. He couldn't remember and I was to lazy to go outside and look.

[01Thunder]

I bought a set of comp cams 1.85 roller rocker arms for my truck. took us a while to do the swap. probably about a 4-5 hour job. on mine. not much to it on my truck. i supported the coil packs so that i could still take the valve covers off and then tighten the rocker arms after i had installed them while it was runnin. you need to have it runnin while you tighten the rocker arms cause if you get them too tight the motor will not turn over. I set the coil packs off to the side and out of the way. then tightened down on each rocker arm untill i felt it stop tappin. and then went a 1/4 of a turn more.
did this for all of them and have not had a problem since. had them on there for a year now.
let me know if you have any more questions i will try and help.

[01Thunder]

sorry, dont know how much for a 4.3L, but mine cost me about $450.00

[RedHeartbeat]

Seriously, if he doesn't even know what engine he has in the truck, why would he even worry about how much power it makes? Obviously this truck gets washed at the local full service car wash and the oil change is done at the local jiffy lube. It sounds like he really should just keep on keeping on until he is enthused enough to at least know a little about what gets his tail from point A to B.

[BigBlue]

It was late that night and he just flat out couldn't remember. That's all. He's saving up to do an LS1 swap (he won't be doing it but I will). He doesn't know much, but he knows that he wants more power. Yall got any suggestions on where I could buy these?

[juztyn]

Ebay probably has the most... some show up here in the forsale section from time to time, and look for wrecked f-body's in your area.

[BigBlue]

Would the wrecked f-body's stock rockers be an advantage over his stock rockers? If so, then I could pick some up real quick. What all would I need to remove when I pulled the rocker out? Would I need new pushrods? How do I go about tightening them? Or is it self explanatory once I see them? Thanks for the help yall.

[01Thunder]

you will need what ever size box end wrench that fits the nutsI cant remember what size, and an allen wrench also. tighten the nut down like i discribed above and then hold the nut with the wrench, not leting it turn anymore. and tighten the allen head screw tight. repeat for all rocker arms.just dont let the wrench turn like i said and you will be allright. the allen screw holds the nut in place.

there was a rail that the stock rockers sat on that you will also need to remove in order for the roller rockers to fit correctly. i kept the stock push rods. and will only change them out when i go to a bigger cam.