Lifter failure

[RustyRatRod]

The FT lifter problem started mid-late 90s, so lifters made before then should be ok.

It's possible it was before that, but we'll likely never know. I well remember Lunati having problems with flat cams in the mid to late 80s. They replaced a lot of cams around here under warranty. I knew some guys at a local Chevy oriented machine shop and Lunati is what they ran exclusively at the time. Their failure rate was something on the order of over 75% of what they sold at the time.

 

[RustyRatRod]

New FT lifters are a 'crap shoot' as my American friends say. If you are not into crap shooting, get some 30 yr old lifters re-faced.

The Crower Cam saver lifters with a groove down the side. I have been doing the same for 30 yrs with a Dremel. No need to pay extra for it, you can do it with any lifter.

Do I thinkit helps? Not really, a gimmick, but I sleep better...

That or go roller.

 

[Dave999]

lifter problems probably been there all along
just in a market where most families owned 16 or 32 64 flat tappet lifters the chances of hearing about a bad one were lower
these days many families have no flat tappet lifters the audience for a new flat tappet lifter is very small, therefore if 1 in every 10000 sets was always bad, most of those got spotted before the engine was in the car or before the car sold, or in warranty. its now 1 in every 10000 old car guys who finds it, and they all know each other and express their opinion to a receptive audience of other old car guys.... no longer 1 in every 10000 of the whole population who gets it fixed under warranty and probably didn't even take note of what the problem was.

60s 70s 2 big companies in the US made all the flat tappet lifters and sold billions of them
80s/90s manufacturers start to move to roller lifters and catalytic converters dictate less ZDDP in oil so the 2 big companies are now only making millions
today 1 company sold out to delphi who shut down flat tappet production and converted production lines to roller lifters the other is hylift johnson. any others come from ??? both mexico and india are places that cost iron stuff comes from federal and melling sealed pro and well lots of companies get perfectly good stuff made there.. but its still a tiny market these days

80s/90s
Less ZDDP in oil impacts all good and less good daily use oil but not so much the aftermarket racing stuff. guys are caught out

2000 - now we don't tend to use oil from the local chevron station because its for modern cars we know about zinc additives
2000s- now the one US company making flat tappet lifters now makes 10s to 100s of thousand and the only place they are needed is the aftermarket for really old engines.

keep in mind the lifters maybe just the same it could be something different with the cam material when the vast majority of cams are now made of materials for roller lifters. did something spoil the recipe for a nice flat tappet cam blank....?

I know 1 guys who insists the problem is abrasive materials left on the cam during manufacturing, recons care and attention to detail in the manufacturing process is long gone, cheaper tooling used in grinding, why invest if you're only making a fraction of what you used to.... some substances used in grinding no longer allowed due to health and safety etc. scrubs his cam with nylon pads and WD40 before fitting, coats it in assembly lube and leaves it to marinate (stops flash rust) and checks for lifter rotation..... hasn't had a problem

obviously just a view and no idea why, i doubt he has any fantastic insight into the manufacturing process, he builds lots of engines though


dave

 

[Bewy]

Dave,
The FT lifter problem was never there prior to the mid 90s when manufacture moved out of the USA...

Also, back 'in the day', we didn't have to remove inner springs for break in. Pontiac engines came from the factory with dual springs. They didn't remove the springs from 000s of engines for break in. Likewise engines such as the Hemi, 6 pack, L-88 Chev, etc all used heavy springs &...broken in with these. It is not the oil either, a convenient scapegoat....

 

[RustyRatRod]

Dave,
The FT lifter problem was never there prior to the mid 90s when manufacture moved out of the USA...

Also, back 'in the day', we didn't have to remove inner springs for break in. Pontiac engines came from the factory with dual springs. They didn't remove the springs from 000s of engines for break in. Likewise engines such as the Hemi, 6 pack, L-88 Chev, etc all used heavy springs &...broken in with these. It is not the oil either, a convenient scapegoat....

Right. Used to be you could just bust off a new engine and basically let it idle. Nothing ever happened. Maybe rev it hard once or twice to sling oil everywhere and you were on the road.

 

[Dave999]

fair enough
being young and foolish i never even used to keep them in the same order
if one went bad i.e a none pump up hydraulic i put in a new one and got on with it
or took one out of a spare engine

so i appreciate fully where you are coming from on that front


i did everything wrong and never had an issue

i now do things right but i don't spend as much of my life building exciting stuff in the garage anymore
i'm a taxi driver for 2 teenagers instead

so the last lifter i installed was 10+ years ago

however
for every bad lifter story
how many are bad lifters?
how many are because these days when a set of springs has ftlb rating they actually stay way closer to that after use than they ever did
how many don't rotate--- how many are cams with the wrong profile to the lobe
how many are due to the aggressive nature of some modern lobe profiles

i.e more has changed and it might not be just a lack of quality lifters
it might be a change in other things we used to depend on changes that went unnoticed and the lifters are getting the blame every time

there could be more to it than meets the eye

 

[440 Mike]

Dave,
The FT lifter problem was never there prior to the mid 90s when manufacture moved out of the USA...

Also, back 'in the day', we didn't have to remove inner springs for break in. Pontiac engines came from the factory with dual springs. They didn't remove the springs from 000s of engines for break in. Likewise engines such as the Hemi, 6 pack, L-88 Chev, etc all used heavy springs &...broken in with these.It is not the oil either, a convenient scapegoat....

Seems to me that initially the problem began with the oil. This would explain why my Direct Connection cam bought and installed in the early 80's performed flawlessly with regular oil changes until some point in the early 90's. These were good parts destroyed by the quietly mandated lower zinc levels in the oil.

The oil/zinc level problem has long since been solved. Today's problems, as you stated, have to do with offshore manufacturing and their poor machining, metallurgy, and definitely a complete disregard of quality control.

 

[Muswagon]

You would be shocked at the amount of people with FT cams run regular conventional or synthetic oil after a correct break in and wonder why their cam turned into a broomstick.

Have a buddy flatten two cams on a chebbie 350 that way, and absolutely will not believe its the oil he was using.

 

[jos51700]

Yep.

That is why you get a set of used factory lifters.......& get them re-faced to use with a new cam.

Unless you want a second failure......

What? I never heard of this? Where does one get this done?

In my shop I try NOT to build anything flat tappet. But when I do, I have a tobin-arp tappet grinder and I reface EVERY lifter that gets installed. I also save all the flat tappets I pull from core engines. The surface finish and radius is terrible on a bunch of the new ones right out of the box

Oh...that's where! Sounds like you have a huge opportunity here...

I decided roller cams forever, but I worry like a **** about all my old Jap motorcycle engines (well, the 4-strokes anyways) that have shim-over-bucket systems.

 

[jos51700]

You would be shocked at the amount of people with FT cams run regular conventional or synthetic oil after a correct break in and wonder why their cam turned into a broomstick.

Have a buddy flatten two cams on a chebbie 350 that way, and absolutely will not believe its the oil he was using.

In the mid-2000's I had found a document from Mobil 1 with all the additive packages for their various oils listed out by product line. There was one that had INSANE amounts of ZDDP and that's what I ran when I stabbed a Comp Cam in my 360. I did the startup lube and all that junk. I cranked on it for a few minutes with no fire before I figured out that I had the distributor 180 out, and that ****** wiped 4 or five lobes.
So now I'm a roller cam man.

 

[Muswagon]

I have only broken in one FT cam, that was last summer.

I did the lube, comp breakin oil, and then made every mistake possible and it survived.

Started and stopped the engine no less than 8 times due to various reasons that I had no choice on.

Then finally the 20 mins at 2-3K.

Made me a believer in the cam saver lifters, or I just got lucky.

I have a 1970 440 with steel crank that I will be building this winter, and i will for sure be going roller.

 

[Craig Burriss]

I bought a FT Comp cam and lifters to put in my spare 440 that currently has no cam at all. I got the cam lube and break in oil to go with it, and some more VR1. This engine will be lower compression, but at least the truck will be running.
I’m sure some of you will tell me Comp Cams is trash, but it appears to me that all cams are trash these days. And at least Comp is USA made… unlike my failed lifter.

 

[Carnut68]

All cam cores come from the same place.

 

[Bewy]

Jos,
I believe in your country Oregon cams re-faces lifters. There will be others.

 

[Craig Burriss]

Pulled the engine today and tore it down. I was pretty surprised at how good everything looked. All the bearings except for rod bearings 7 and 8 were perfect. Not sure why only those two got chewed up but it looks like they were about to get spun!

Crank looks and feels perfect. I might’ve got off easy here. We’ll see

#8

 

[RustyRatRod]

Wow yeah those got debris in them alright. Good luck with it man. I hope it turns out good.