who is running MRL (BAM) Lifters without lifter bore sleeves

Alex5280 said
I was running MRL lifters for about an hour, Low oil pressure, burned up Hughes rockers on passenger side over hole #2. Everything is a big mess. The shaft on the passenger side is scarred so bad it looks terrible. Mike said these are drop in, no mods needed. Wrong! I really don’t know what to think. All components were purschased from Mike. I assembled it all. I was running a solid roller VooDoo cam and the MRL lifters with Smith Bros. Push rods, and Hughes shafts and 1.6 rockers. Disaster. It is my opinion after doing a lot of reading that the lifter bores should have been bushed: bushings installed. Or at least the galley needed to be tubed and peened. Live and learn, expensive F up.

Pulling engine, going to take it apart. Either I’ll have the lifter bores bushed, or possibly buy a set of Comp 828-16 lifters (no oil belt). But these lifters require grinding the block, should have been done before it went together.

Just to add to this discussion, my current build I wanted to use the new bushed roller lifters from comp cams. These lifters have no needle bearings in the axle wheel and have an edm oil pressure feed hole directly to the bushing and axle assembly. As Pittsburgh racer has said I would never build a roller cam motor without a minimum of tubing the oil galley. Problem for me with these new lifters is they require some oil. With this build I decided to have the lifter bores bushed instead of tubing the block. The lifter bushings have a .030
Feed hole to restrict oil leakage to the lifters. The block will use a high volume pump. I have also eliminated the rocker oiling through the cam bearings and will direct feed right from the main oil galley
With a brake line jumper tube mod from the stroker small block build book. Also one brake line feed over to the driver side lifter galley
To feed the other bank of lifters.
Also these new comp cams sportsman lifters have the link bar located inboard, so no goring of the block and the lifter axles are staked so they have no snap ring clips to fail either.
I am hoping for the best compromise of reliability if the valvetrain
And good oil pressure for the bottom end, and no needle bearing in the oil pump and pan if you loose a lifter.