Lifter Problem
 

What can be some of the causes for new roller lifters to brake with less than 30 mins. running time?

There can be many reasons. A few that come to mind are...

incorrect spring pressure
oiling problems
misadjusted lash
faulty lifter
tight lifter bore
lifter bore misalignment
cam walk
defective cam core

Thanks Vinny, We had about the same list.

HP,
How about some additional details ? Was this a set of replacement lifters with nothing else being done to the engine ? Big Block or Small Block ? What actually "broke" ?

Bill Koustenis
Advanved Automotive Machine
Waldorf MD

New rebuild, big block 540 ci. dart block and pro 1 dart heads.
New Crower lifters. reused old cam, new valve train.
#6 lifter broke after about 30 mins running time. The rail that connects the lifters is what broke and this allowed the lifter to turn sideways on the cam :mad:

Ouch :(

Almost hate to ask, but any chance the lifters were not in correct ? I have seen guys put them in with the bar upside down and it will run but cause a major mess. I cannot think of anything in the valve train that would cause the link bar to break. Were they the correct lifters (tall ones) if needed ?

Bill Koustenis
Advanced Automotive Machine
Waldorf Md

That was the first thing we thought before pulling it down, but I'm sure they were installed correctly, but as you know there is not way to tell for sure now. At least all the other lifters do have the arrow pointing up, and yes we run the tall lifters.

pushrod flexing

You should be able to tell unless both lifters came all the way out of the bores.

That was another question also, when you did the tall lifters did you change the pushrod lengths? Maybe you hung a valve. Did any pushrods break? Remove the head and see if the piston and the valve met.

how about checking the rocker arm geometry ??

We have been running the tall lifters for some time now. We checked the geometry and for pushrods lenghts, and made the proper adjustments. We have not pulled the heads, but we did a leak down test, and had less than 2%, so we are thinking the valves are ok. We had over 100 thousands valve to piston.

Thanks guys for ideas and help.

HP,
I thought about something else to day at the shop. A year or so ago I was doing a pair of 502's and we had two sets of lifters that seemed to be made wrong. When you put them in the block, they were not tracking perfectly straight on the camshaft. We sent them back to the manufacturer but never did hear what they found on them. It was almost like the link bars were not quite formed properly. We ended up using the factory type lifters, but the tall ones, with the factory "dog bone" retainers and never had a problem. Might not be a bad idea to look at the other lifters you have to se if they look straight. We never ran the ones we had but I would imagine they would have put some side loadings on the link bars if we did.

Bill Koustenis
Advanced Automotive Machine
Waldorf Md

HP,
I think Bill could be on the right track. Last fall we had a catastrophic lifter failure. All 16 .850 rollers lifters simultaneously failed at 12 hrs....$12,000+ problem! The problem became apparent at a 5800 RPM high speed cruise...lots of damage. Best oils, perfect machining, spot-on clearances, assembled by a pro, .165 custom pushrods, SpinTron tested, best springs, retainers, valves, etc. How could this proven race set-up/combination fail at a fast cruise in flat water? Initially we thought it might be a bad cam core, we had it Rockwell tested and eliminated that...looked closer, it was clearly the lifers. After a little G2 and confrontation with the manufacture, they admitted the problem.
It would be my suggestion to get someone real experienced to help you with the diagnosis. Look real close at the surviving components for abnormal wear.
If it is a quality issue, you can get compensation. If you network, you might be able to find others that have had issues with the same components.
As others have said, many things can cause valve train failure, get a pro involved in finding out why.
My point is, don't assume it is not the product.

Now I have one hell of a problem, I'm no pro engine builder. When you say not tracking straight on the cam, were the lifters trying to turn side to side, rather than go straight up and down? What is the best way to check for this?

Thanks you very much for your help!

HP,
The lifters that we had were actually a little "twisted" for lack of a better word. It was as though the link bar was not bent quite enough, or maybe too far, I can't remember right now. It would have made the roller run just slightly sideways on the lobes. I noticed it when I was installing the lifters. You can see where they hit the cam on a big block, and they were not quite straight. I thought it might be the blcok, so we tried them in another block, but they were still crooked. I dont have my camera at the shop, but I will try to bring it on Wednesday and put a lifter in a bore and show you how it was twisted.

Ben,
If you feel like it shoot me an e-mail ..... [email protected]

Bill Koustenis
Advanced Automotive Machine
Waldorf Md

Well this goes to show how much I know about this stuff, I though they did have a LITTLE twist in them:hitfan: because the ones I have do have a little twist in them, by that I mean the lifter roller does not run perfectly straight, maybe a 1 or 2 degree angle on them. I can see this when you put them in the block. With the lifter straight the roller is on a very small angle with the cam.

sounds like your problem they should run perfectly straight

The body of the lifter does run straight, but the roller is on a angle.

HP,
That sounds exactly like the ones we had.

Bill

Thanks so much for your help guys. I'm going to order a new cam and lifters, and try this again.

Did ya call Crower. They have always be good to me on warranty stuff.Try Reed


heres a pick of the Crower sbc lifter

Yes I did call Crower, and they said they were real sorry for the problem. Can we send you another set at a supper deal $640.00 + shipping. I said sure what the hell, send them on.

Was this for the race boat ? Sorry to hear about it .:(

Warranty, we don't need no stinking warranty. :evilb:

Sometimes this hobby can just be so frustrating. :(:angry-smiley-038:

HP,
I may be missing something, but it seems like you are ordering the same part, from the same source that failed in a very short time. Are you sure you won't get the same result? Was your installation/preparation at fault or the part?

The reason we use Crower is because in the past they had the only lifters that lived for than a few hours. I'm sure this was nothing more than a bad part. After all the other 15 lifters are ok. I think they can this racing.

We just had a similar event after completion of the RAYLAR BCK-103s on twin 496s. Had a roller lifter fail on the port engine after less than 20 minutes total run time. We'll pull the boat out of the water on Friday and try to see what went wrong. The engine is probably trashed as there's lots of metal in the oil.

Any help on how to diagnose what went wrong is appreciated.

Thanks,

Brad

We learned nothing from this. We have gone back thur the motor, and have run it with out any further problems so far.