Current options on multipurpose lifters?

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LovetheA's

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I’ve come to a point where I feel it best to ask the peanut gallery. After a long learning process and overcoming many issues thanks to everyone’s help on here I have to make a choice. The 67 dart is back on the road and seems to be running fairly well. The issue I noticed is that three of the old lifters lose oil rapidly after not running. After the car starts up and warms up they do pump up, but it takes a little time and I’m thinking future performance issues and a noisy valve train.
What’s in the car right now is an old hydraulic Mopars performance purple cam 484 lift 284 duration. It’s an 383 approx 10:1 compression, with edelbrock performer rpm aluminum heads, performer rpm intake and 650 speed demon carb. TTI big block a body headers.
The car is a factory 4 speed and 3:55 sure grip in the rear.
The lifters in it are at least 20 years old and are standard flat tappet lifters (not sure if factory Mopars or not). I’m tight with money right now so I want to make a choice on lifters that can be used again for future upgrades. Questiones:
What is a quality lifter to fit my needs? I’ll obviously just replace them all. Is it better to spend more money and get the best quality you can afford?
Can I buy lifters that can later also be used with a roller hydraulic cam? I’m thinking I’ll eventually may change out my cam for a hydraulic roller don’t have the money for this anytime soon.
What is a good future hydraulic roller for this setup? Lift, duration, centerline?
Thanks as always.
Carl
 
I’ve come to a point where I feel it best to ask the peanut gallery. After a long learning process and overcoming many issues thanks to everyone’s help on here I have to make a choice. The 67 dart is back on the road and seems to be running fairly well. The issue I noticed is that three of the old lifters lose oil rapidly after not running. After the car starts up and warms up they do pump up, but it takes a little time and I’m thinking future performance issues and a noisy valve train.
What’s in the car right now is an old hydraulic Mopars performance purple cam 484 lift 284 duration. It’s an 383 with edelbrock performer rpm aluminum heads, performer rpm intake and 650 speed demon carb. TTI big block a body headers.
The car is a factory 4 speed and 3:55 sure grip in the rear.
The lifters in it are at least 20 years old and are standard flat tappet lifters (not sure if factory Mopars or not). I’m tight with money right now so I want to make a choice on lifters that can be used again for future upgrades. Questiones:
What is a quality lifter to fit my needs? I’ll obviously just replace them all. Is it better to spend more money and get the best quality you can afford?
Can I buy lifters that can later also be used with a roller hydraulic cam? I’m thinking I’ll eventually may change out my cam for a hydraulic roller don’t have the money for this anytime soon.
What is a good future hydraulic roller for this setup? Lift, duration, centerline?
Thanks as always.
Carl
Once you mate the lifters to the camshaft lobe that's it, they won't mate to another camshaft. As for the best lifters I can't say, but I would personally avoid Comp lifters, never had anything but trouble out of them.
 
Murray are you saying that the hydraulic lifters sometimes will loose their ability to stay pumped up but can still be used in the car for years? Maybe just make sure that they warm up a little then they should be fine as long as the lifter isn’t collapsed.
 
So it’s not possible to try to match a new set of lifters to an older cam? Can it be done?
Yes, new lifters on an older camshaft, but once they're mated the lifters won't work on a different camshaft. The wear pattern has been established and you will need a new set of lifters.
 
Pull the noisy lifters in order and disassemble and clean them, possibly change out the check valves inside as most lifters are the same anyway. a flat tappet lifter is different than a roller lifter. Schubeck used to make a $$$ ceramic faced lifter that could be transferred to another camshaft but they went under. New lifters are inexpensive in the scheme of things, have you checked the lobes on that 'ol Roadrunner cam? I had the same cam in a 340 with 3.91's and really liked it.
 
I think the Lunati Micro Trol flat tappet lifters are some of the best on the market now. To answer your question.
 
Thank everyone for all the info. Please give me a couple more suggestions so I can choose.
I think I get it now. You should only use lifters with the cam it has been broken in with. However, new lifters can be broken in to that same older cam over and over.
Apparently the integrity of the used cam isn’t the issue when adapting to a new set of lifters. The new lifters each time brake in to the set wear pattern of the cam? Is that correct?
 
Thank everyone for all the info. Please give me a couple more suggestions so I can choose.
I think I get it now. You should only use lifters with the cam it has been broken in with. However, new lifters can be broken in to that same older cam over and over.
Apparently the integrity of the used cam isn’t the issue when adapting to a new set of lifters. The new lifters each time brake in to the set wear pattern of the cam? Is that correct?

You can use new lifters on a used cam, but not used lifters on a new cam. I wouldn't use used lifters on a matched cam even if they were marked for the corresponding lobe they came off of. New lifters are pretty cheap. Once lifters have been run on a cam, they establish a matching wear pattern with that lobe. You can put new lifters on a used cam, as long as you go through the camshaft break in process all over again. Does that clear it up?

What more "suggestions" do you want? More lifter suggestions? Those Lunati Mocro Trols are the best on the market. If you don't take my word for it, then just buy some 69.99 Melling lifters and run them.
 
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Can I make a new set of hydraulic roller lifters work with my Mopar performance purple cam in the car currently? You don’t need to use hydraulic roller lifters solely with a hydraulic roller cam but can it be compatible with a traditional older cam like in my dart?
 
Thanks Rusty I appreciate the suggestion. If you look at my recent post I’m also trying to determine if I can use roller lifters with my older style flat tappet Mopar performance cam.
 
Can I make a new set of hydraulic roller lifters work with my Mopar performance purple cam in the car currently? You don’t need to use hydraulic roller lifters solely with a hydraulic roller cam but can it be compatible with a traditional older cam like in my dart?

Not if it's a flat tappet, no. Flat tappet cams have an entirely different profile than a roller. They are not compatible.
 
Thanks Rusty I appreciate the suggestion. If you look at my recent post I’m also trying to determine if I can use roller lifters with my older style flat tappet Mopar performance cam.

You cannot. See my last post.
 
A flat tappet cam will always be a flat tappet cam and a roller cam will always be a roller cam. You cannot mix the two because the design of the lobes on the cam are very different and they will self destruct if you play mix and match. Your choices seem to be, #1- do nothing and ignore the start-up noise, or #2- replace all the lifters with new ones.
 
A flat tappet cam will always be a flat tappet cam and a roller cam will always be a roller cam. You cannot mix the two because the design of the lobes on the cam are very different and they will self destruct if you play mix and match. Your choices seem to be, #1- do nothing and ignore the start-up noise, or #2- replace all the lifters with new ones.

There is a third option. You can try some of the oil additives like Marvel's Mystery Oil, Sea Foam and the like, though I've had little success with those. A few, not many. Certainly cheap enough to try, though.
 
Oil additives may work on those cars where varnish is causing the lifter to hang up. My experience has seen more issues with a weakened internal spring, only fixed by replacement. Like you though, I have never seen oil additives fix anything. Thanks for bringing it up.
 
Oil additives may work on those cars where varnish is causing the lifter to hang up. My experience has seen more issues with a weakened internal spring, only fixed by replacement. Like you though, I have never seen oil additives fix anything. Thanks for bringing it up.

I have a time or TWO but that's about it. In the case where maybe a piece of dirt or "something" is hung up in a lifter, there's a small chance some of those additives can work. Certainly worth the try, IMO. You never know.
 
Flat tappet cams have a crown on the lobe (one side it taller than the other) so as to rotate the lifter. Put a roller lifter on than and it will grind that crown down and you'll lose lift. And once a cam starts getting ground on, its done. Roller cams have no crown so the roller hits 100% of its footprint on the parallel cam lobe. Its been done with solid rollers but the results were not good. Cam was shot and most of that debris will end up in the rest of the motor.
 
I don't think that anyone mentioned this, but take a good look at the bottoms of the tappets and the camshaft lobes when you take it apart, keep them in order taken out. Cupped tappet bottoms or pitted bottoms mean that the camshaft is not in good shape. This observation is not difficult see.
 
Cruze418 I’ll definitely check out the bottoms of the flat tappet lifters when I remove them. It will give me a good idea of the shape of the cam.
 
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