How did you come to diagnose that failure due to the Rhoades lifters.
I've run them for years on many engines and for over 250,000 in an engine with no problems.
Are you sure that something else didn't cause that failure?
It was a customer of mine. He wanted to tame it down, so we talked and thought the rhoads would do the trick. It did help a bunch. But when you have a big cam in a engine designed for a big cam(read: HIGH COMPRESSION) and then make the cam 3-5 sizes smaller, bad things happen. It detonated real bad, pounded all the rod bearings out of it and spun a few. The cylinder pressures were way to high. He reported the power was incredible right up to the point where it started shaking and then just quit.
So don't use them in high compression engines. They are made to be used in severely OVER CAMMED engines to tame them down at low rpm, then make it come alive at high rpm. I have used them with success since that blowup with great results. I have a set of the VMAX lifters in a race engine running a solid cam. The torque curve was like a turbo Diesel, came on early and hung in there forever.
