I feel like i just got cuffed in the back of the head
But I'm glad you know the people I know 
Lunati Hydraulic FT Cam users..........
- Thread starter 318willrun
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But I'm glad you know the people I know
I could just take the easy way out. Right now I have the opportunity to buy a complete turn key, all safety belts, etc are current to 2021, Nova that turns consistent 10.20's-10.30's for 7000k. All these beatings by all these gurus just makes it all that much more tempting. While they try to build a motor for 7k to go 11's, I'll just turn the key and spank them for 7k - in a chivvy
468 BB w/glide, TCI converter and 4.56 gears. Rust free car i might add
PRH
Well-Known Member
The point is, which I would have thought was obvious.....
Saying “comp lifters” or “Lunati lifters” are junk, and “*** lifters are good” is pointless..... they’re all coming from only a couple suppliers.
Especially in the case of Comp and Lunati...... since they’re sitting in the same warehouse.
Like Comp cam cores are soft, but the Lunatis are good.
It’s the same company.
The cores come off of the same pallet, and are ground on the same cam grinder.
Saying “comp lifters” or “Lunati lifters” are junk, and “*** lifters are good” is pointless..... they’re all coming from only a couple suppliers.
Especially in the case of Comp and Lunati...... since they’re sitting in the same warehouse.
Like Comp cam cores are soft, but the Lunatis are good.
It’s the same company.
The cores come off of the same pallet, and are ground on the same cam grinder.
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I wouldn't pay that or suggest anyone to pay that much for a lifter either.
I mainly posted that because I found it interesting that a highly credible manufacturer of hydraulic lifters states not to use any oil heavier then 10w 30
That's all...
Well sure, but I never said anything was junk. lol I am running what I chose based on that they have the features I am looking for. I can promise you one thing. "All this" about this cam being bad......those lifters being junk has come from the zinc being taken out of the oil. I remember back when it began. Lunati had a rash of wiped lobes. They stood behind them, even though it was not the cam. They got a bad rep for a short time because of that. Late 80s early 90s. Somewhere in there.
There's probably a hundred or more cams between a handful of manufacturers that would work in this application. Some may work a little better or a little worse than the others but they all work. No magic bullet, no perfect cam. Change 1 thing in the recipe and another cam will work better. 
dartfreak75
Restore it, Dont part it!
PRH
Well-Known Member
7 thousand..... thousand? ;)
MOPAROFFICIAL
Oogliboogli
I've had one hyd lifter issue with one out of a set of boxed as pioneer or something lifters. Been a long time. I remember it took almost all of the 20 min to pump up...the suspense makes ya break a sweat ... but one would 'almost' always make noise about every other cold start....and sometimes out of the blue after running it...you could feel it lose pressure at a cruise. Took it apart, cleaned it a few different times never really finding any dirt.
Duane is throughly making the point, that matters, about all are from the same manufacturer ... until you spend 5 times the price on the other manufacturers design...you're getting a reboxed lifter...that's why my opener in this thread was that if I'm buying hyd lifters at a street performance level..I'll spend less on the ones in boring white box as opposed to paying extra for the name comp or lunati. I used to look at the lifter body, does it have the line near the top, or not ...but does that matter? Are their a few manufacturing processes that are in different plants? The body, then the valving . Idk
Me personally, if I need to spend 400+on hyd lifters to keep it together...I'll just run a solid like most have already said.
I'm not a great writer or explainer half the time...I'm glad others better articulate mutual thought.
Thanks to all the informative posters.
The others who flew flags and cheered brands... hope you got paid er something.
We even had a little "what brand of oil you should use" in here.. haha. Always good stuff.. informative, entertaining, even shocking. Haha...other times it's just a 'wait for it' thing.
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That's like VIN number. I find myself there every now and then.
7000 dollars. Turn key ready to race today, clear title, no rust, runs low 10's, a best of 10.14 @ 132 mph. I'm not buying the car, I was making a pun.
Phreakish
Well-Known Member
I deal in manufacturing and have dealt with 'reboxing'. Most people do not understand how it actually works. Every plant that offers 'reboxing' also offers different price points, different processes, different QC levels, etc. The "same" parts often aren't. There are often additional value-added steps available for an up-charge (polishing, better materials, better coating, etc).
The cheapest junk "fRoM tHe SaMe FactORy" is rarely the same part that gets a premium label. Are there premium sellers that rebox the cheapest crap and claim their turds are gold plated? Sure. That's also why threads like this exist though, to see if people have had the promised 'premium' experience from the premium brands.
The increased cost associated with reboxed parts also has to do with warranty and QC. No-name white box parts aren't going to help you cover the cost of a new cam and lifters if one ***** the bed. A more reputable company will. No-name companies aren't going to inspect for the finish, OD, crown on the lifter face, spring preload, etc. A reputable company will.
I've rejected tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars worth of parts. Guess what? Every one of them was sold anyway! Just by another company with a lower moral threshold. So the whole claim of "made in the same factory" holds little water with me because reality is that their scrap is going to get sold by someone anyway. I pay more for parts to increase my chances of getting the 'good' parts and not their scrap parts.
The cheapest junk "fRoM tHe SaMe FactORy" is rarely the same part that gets a premium label. Are there premium sellers that rebox the cheapest crap and claim their turds are gold plated? Sure. That's also why threads like this exist though, to see if people have had the promised 'premium' experience from the premium brands.
The increased cost associated with reboxed parts also has to do with warranty and QC. No-name white box parts aren't going to help you cover the cost of a new cam and lifters if one ***** the bed. A more reputable company will. No-name companies aren't going to inspect for the finish, OD, crown on the lifter face, spring preload, etc. A reputable company will.
I've rejected tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars worth of parts. Guess what? Every one of them was sold anyway! Just by another company with a lower moral threshold. So the whole claim of "made in the same factory" holds little water with me because reality is that their scrap is going to get sold by someone anyway. I pay more for parts to increase my chances of getting the 'good' parts and not their scrap parts.
MOPAROFFICIAL
Oogliboogli
I had 'unpremium' experiences with clay Smith cams, mopar performance, comp cams lifters.
What's an inspector for again...?
It's a crap shoot, are you're going all in ?
Builder type parts 'parts machine shops use to build stock replacement engines' are tried and true in their 'arena' of usage. Like elgin and some others. That's what I based my initial decision to use some of this and that from their line and with success. Phreakish makes a good point...but also points out the system is broken if they still get past the inspector. That's called 'Bottom Line Matters'
Lmao
What's an inspector for again...?
It's a crap shoot, are you're going all in ?
Builder type parts 'parts machine shops use to build stock replacement engines' are tried and true in their 'arena' of usage. Like elgin and some others. That's what I based my initial decision to use some of this and that from their line and with success. Phreakish makes a good point...but also points out the system is broken if they still get past the inspector. That's called 'Bottom Line Matters'
Lmao
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Phreakish
Well-Known Member
Inspectors are intended to make sure my work doesn't go to waste. I don't spend time spec'ing things just because it's fun, tolerances and specs matter despite the protestations of many.
Me too with MP and COMP. My Lunati lifters (supposedly from the same box of crap as COMP) have already done far, far better. When stacked up side-by-side with Howard's lifters, COMP, super-old MP, and some old Mellings the Lunati's were obviously not from the same grab-bag while the Howards and COMP looked identical. The MP and Mellings looked identical but didn't feel identical when it came to the spring and hardware inside. I didn't bother taking them apart because they were already junk.
And so that's why I responded here, since the question was specifically about Lunati and my recent experience with them leads me to believe they're not from the same poop chute as COMP and others
. Since most 'run of the mill' lifters seem to be a failure looking for a place to happen, anything that is different HAS to be better in my opinion - and so far that's working out for me. YMMV
mopar head
Well-Known Member
I chose one of their cam and micro-trol lifters, happy so far, but only about 3500mi. on engine. weekend car, no rattle on cold starts.
My Isky E4 rattles a bit when cold. I love it.
I have a Lunati 10200704 (60404 when I bought it) in my 340, up until a little over a month ago I was running it with the Lunati cam kit "high performance" lifters. Those are the ones with the wire retainer. I put about 25k miles on the engine with them. Cold start up if the car had been sitting more than a day or two it always had a little bit of a lifter rattle for a few seconds until the lifters pumped up. They always did, it always ran fine, but I never had a ton of confidence in those lifters just because they always seemed to leak down faster than they should, at least IMO.
A few weeks ago I broke a pushrod. Not bent, this is a Smith's Brothers pushrod and it just flat out snapped clean off right at the end of the pressed in ball down at the lifter end. No warning, no changes, fired it off to go to work and just like that it was running rough. And no obvious damage to the outside of the push rod to indicate it hit anything either. I was suspicious of the lifters because I never really liked them, but again, I hadn't had any real issues with them and nothing had changed. So I sent the push rod back to Smith's and they sent me a new one, said they looked at it under a scope and it looked fine, one of their senior guys said he hadn't really seen anything like that and they weren't sure what happened. At least according to the guy on the phone, but I don't have any reason not to believe them as they warrantied the thing anyway. So I put it back together with the new pushrod and fired it off after inspecting things as best I could without tearing it down further. The car had been sitting a couple weeks at that point, so I expected the cold lifter rattle and sure enough I got one. Except louder, and they didn't pump up. For a lot longer than I was comfortable with. I shut it down, tried again, same thing even with a cold oil pressure pushing 70 psi. Nope, lifters done, not pumping up. I'm not a fan of coincidences, so, that pushrod probably belonged to a lifter that had bled down completely.
I replaced them with a set of Lunati Micro-trols, so far no issues and no cold start lifter rattle either. But only a couple weeks on them at this point. I inspected the cam and old lifters when I pulled the intake to change out the lifters, the cam looked fine and looked right for about 25k miles. The lifters, not so much. They weren't flat, but, they definitely looked like they were more than 25k miles old. Hard to explain, they didn't hurt the cam any and they weren't worn out, but they were pretty tired looking for only 25k miles. And when I pulled them none of them were pumped up, but, I waited to tear into it until I had the replacement lifters so that was kinda expected. The lifter on the pushrod that broke initially seemed the same as the rest of them - no damage, no less resistance, nothing out of ordinary compared to the rest other than generally looking more tired than a 25k mile lifter should look IMO. The micro-trols looked great, definitely a higher quality lifter straight out of the box compared to the HP ones.
My 340 has a 9.8:1 compression ratio, it has ported 308 heads, the recommended Lunati double springs to go with the 704 cam, Hughes rocker shafts with ductile iron adjustable crane rockers (1.5), Smiths pushrods, Eddy air gap intake, 750 Holley DP, Doug's headers, high volume oil pump, Milodon road race pan with a windage tray, pushes 70-75 oil psi cold and about 30 psi hot idle with Brad Penn 10-30w. It's my daily driver so that's why it has a hydraulic cam, not a weekend only or strip only car that I want to be adjusting rockers on all the time with a solid lifter set up. I have run solid lifter set ups before, they're not a big deal either but this one is going to stay hydraulic unless I keep losing lifters. Hopefully the Lunati micro-trols will hold up longer than the wire retainer HP's did and I can revisit the whole hydraulic vs solid vs roller when I build the next engine for it.
Just my experience with them, I'm not a professional engine builder or anything.
A few weeks ago I broke a pushrod. Not bent, this is a Smith's Brothers pushrod and it just flat out snapped clean off right at the end of the pressed in ball down at the lifter end. No warning, no changes, fired it off to go to work and just like that it was running rough. And no obvious damage to the outside of the push rod to indicate it hit anything either. I was suspicious of the lifters because I never really liked them, but again, I hadn't had any real issues with them and nothing had changed. So I sent the push rod back to Smith's and they sent me a new one, said they looked at it under a scope and it looked fine, one of their senior guys said he hadn't really seen anything like that and they weren't sure what happened. At least according to the guy on the phone, but I don't have any reason not to believe them as they warrantied the thing anyway. So I put it back together with the new pushrod and fired it off after inspecting things as best I could without tearing it down further. The car had been sitting a couple weeks at that point, so I expected the cold lifter rattle and sure enough I got one. Except louder, and they didn't pump up. For a lot longer than I was comfortable with. I shut it down, tried again, same thing even with a cold oil pressure pushing 70 psi. Nope, lifters done, not pumping up. I'm not a fan of coincidences, so, that pushrod probably belonged to a lifter that had bled down completely.
I replaced them with a set of Lunati Micro-trols, so far no issues and no cold start lifter rattle either. But only a couple weeks on them at this point. I inspected the cam and old lifters when I pulled the intake to change out the lifters, the cam looked fine and looked right for about 25k miles. The lifters, not so much. They weren't flat, but, they definitely looked like they were more than 25k miles old. Hard to explain, they didn't hurt the cam any and they weren't worn out, but they were pretty tired looking for only 25k miles. And when I pulled them none of them were pumped up, but, I waited to tear into it until I had the replacement lifters so that was kinda expected. The lifter on the pushrod that broke initially seemed the same as the rest of them - no damage, no less resistance, nothing out of ordinary compared to the rest other than generally looking more tired than a 25k mile lifter should look IMO. The micro-trols looked great, definitely a higher quality lifter straight out of the box compared to the HP ones.
My 340 has a 9.8:1 compression ratio, it has ported 308 heads, the recommended Lunati double springs to go with the 704 cam, Hughes rocker shafts with ductile iron adjustable crane rockers (1.5), Smiths pushrods, Eddy air gap intake, 750 Holley DP, Doug's headers, high volume oil pump, Milodon road race pan with a windage tray, pushes 70-75 oil psi cold and about 30 psi hot idle with Brad Penn 10-30w. It's my daily driver so that's why it has a hydraulic cam, not a weekend only or strip only car that I want to be adjusting rockers on all the time with a solid lifter set up. I have run solid lifter set ups before, they're not a big deal either but this one is going to stay hydraulic unless I keep losing lifters. Hopefully the Lunati micro-trols will hold up longer than the wire retainer HP's did and I can revisit the whole hydraulic vs solid vs roller when I build the next engine for it.
Just my experience with them, I'm not a professional engine builder or anything.
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Should all be interesting.... I'm ready to get started, just have to get past all the miserable heat/humidity
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I saw your original post before you edited.
Never have I /we flattened a lobe. lol
It's purely a lack of proper parts/lubricant and/or proper break in procedure
LOL.... I edited it in respect to the other thread's OP. I have never lost a lobe either.... yet. LOL.
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