What two do you find to be the best?
I don’t care if they are needle bearing or bushed, if they don’t have a wheel that is .800 diameter or bigger I won’t use them.
Most lifters fail for the same few reasons.
1. Not enough spring load. It will kill a roller lifter so fast it’s crazy. It’s the opposite of a flat tappet lifter. Since the vast majority of us started out with those lifters we think of high spring pressure as a negative. Bill Jenkins addressed this in 1975. The only difference is cam lobes today are so much more aggressive and valve weights have gone up so much the required spring pressure to control the valve train is higher.
2. Low idle speed. This is a slow death on lifters. Even flat tappet stuff gets killed with low idle rpm. The flat tappet lifter has to rotate to live. With say, 360 pounds over the nose, the slow idle can reduce or stop lifter rotation and they die.
The roller wheel, when slowed down no longer rolls but starts skidding. When it’s skidding the needles riding on the axle don’t rotate either. They skid too. It doesn’t take long and the needles get a flat spot and then they **** the bed.
Bushed lifters have the same issue except they are a bit more forgiving. At low rpm idle the axle will basically wiggle, flat spot the axle or the bushing or both and the grim reaper is at the door.
If you listen and pay attention you can hear a bushed lifter squeak if it’s under duress and about to fail. That’s the canary in the coal mine. Ignore the squeak and the bed will be full of poo in short order.
Dirty oil kills both types of roller lifters too.
3. Low oil pressure at idle. It’s bad with needle bearings but it’s death on a bushed lifter. The needle bearings can survive on much less oil than a bushed lifter. The bushed lifter must have pressurized oil to the bushing. If it’s not getting oil before the pressure on the gauge is low death is near.
If the gauge says 20 psi that’s at the gauge. Most guys running bushed lifters are using aftermarket blocks with priority main piling rather than oil the lifters first oiling on the vast majority of OEM blocks. On priority main piling systems the lifters are at the end of the line.
That 20 psi on the gauge may only be 10 or 5 or even zero at the lifter. At that point a catastrophic event is st hand.
Small diameter wheels and those three things are the root causes of the vast majority of lifter failures.
Edit: I forgot to mention that Steve Morris posted a video on his YouTube channel about his lifter failure at Drag Week this year. I think it was Drag Week but it was a drag and drive event non the less.
He killed some lifters and he explains why they failed. Operator error is the short answer but watch the video and see what he says.
I almost forgot. In the 1990’s and early 2000’s it was all the rage to keep the ignition off and crank the engine until it had oil pressure. That is DEATH for ANY lifter. Never ever do that, even in a flat tappet cam that’s broken in. It will kill it.
I almost forgot to mention it because you don’t see it much anymore.
I was pitted next to a guy for the weekend. Didn’t know him from Adam. I could hear him cranking and cranking on it Saturday morning.
Sunday he was doing it again so I walked around the trailer to see what he was doing. When I saw him cranking it over to get oil pressure I ran up to him and knock that off. You’ll kill a lifter.
He got pissy with me and said his engine builder told him to do it. I said fire that jackass and get a new engine builder. He wasn’t pleased with that but who cares? He needed to know.
He made it to round 3. He was driving up to the staging lanes and guess what? It **** a lifter. I wanted to laugh and say I told you so but I didn’t. He was done for the day and had a bunch of work to do and money to spend.
Several years later someone mentioned his name and I happened to remember him. Turns out he was from California and he had passed away.
I mentioned the above story and a couple of guys started laughing. I found out HE was the engine builder. And he had all of his customers doing the same thing.
It’s pretty hard to fire yourself but he should have.
