Hollow stem valves

[Rob Wright]

Originally Posted by rx dealer

Jaf, I bought a set manley solid valves for my LS3. The hollow stem were 6-8 weeks out and $250 more for a savings of only 9 grams a valve. that might seem little but x 16 valves and that adds up. So the new valves, heads,cam, lifters,rockers along with the factory hollow stem valves all went on a spintron to see where i stand and valve control was good to 9400 RPM. on both solid and hollow stem. point is I don't think it matters. I was worried having heavy valves but the spintron proved me wrong. I did find out that my valve springs were too heavy on the seat. I hope this helps...Luke SS 311

It matters a lot if you have a cam with "iffy" lift curves. You can easily lose 1,000 RPM of peak limiting speed by changing to solid stem from hollow in some combinations.

For heads popping off valves, I'll bet a hundred they had severe bounce at closing. That's generally what will make things break. Good thing some people test this stuff.