And you don't think that was caused by the roller not wanting to spin because the needle bearings were hammered out.

The needles were still great the lobe could not handle the spring plus the valve. When it opend.

Wasn't a bm cam? What lifters where you using when that happened? I want those kind after the abuse they or one took incl high pressures to boot and still looked great. Seriously... Was morel needle then or different lifters?

I would think the pressure against the lobe would be much greater when trying to open an exhaust valve against cylinder pressure, than opening an intake valve , even if a 2.400 ?

Exhaust lobes were perfect the valve weighed a ton. If it was a titanium valve I am sure would not of bin a problem.

Harold from ultra dyne camshaft and crane ultra pro lifters.

There is. About 10 times more.

I don't know who was making them for them back in the day. Possibly Shaver??? Johnson currently makes Bodies for Isky and Crower. They are fork style with .750 wheels. Johnson use to make lifters for Comp. Comp dropped them because they were having problems. They also use to make lifters for Scorpion. scorpion were offshore boat people. I know in the beginning they were having problems with the pile valve in the Hydraulics. The guy who built the 540's that were in my Fountain was involved in the early testing with Scorpion. Scorpion has since dropped Johnson and got out of the lifter business from what I understand. Johnson had problems and shutdown for awhile. This was years ago. If you can think back a few years. There was a time when there was a big void in the market and you couldn't get hydraulic lifters anywhere...

What was the duration @.020 and @.050?

Hey Tim what were your .020 and .050 duration numbers on your cams???

I think your right about Ronnie Shaver making the lifters for awhile , he used them briefly in our sprintcar engines but stop because of problems.
The guys were assembling them along side the veggie cutters and race engines ! Loved listen to George tell stories , Ronnie.... Coolest Dude in the world , smart as hell too.

Good info !

Which Johnson ? Just asking because even 'pros' are still messing up which is which.

The expensive one

I was running a 2.4 stainless valve in my Big Dukes with 350 lb on the seat, maybe I was just lucky. With so much being made in China now how do we find good parts

276. .05

You can't buy quality parts anymore. A lot of these cam companies are getting parts from Eaton. Eatons plant is in Mexico. Is this why Morel was having lifter issues awhile back?

What was the @.020?

Wow can't believe 350lbs and a stainless valve worked makes me feel good now with my own heads and titanium intake valves.

I don't remember I think it was .437 lobe. Will look for cam card but think it's gone.

Sounds like we were running some similar parts, my cam was 304 /276 intake 312 /284 exhaust .782 .

276. 284 that was me with a 1.75 rocker.

My opinion...all the metal sucks and even the quality sucks these days!!!

couple of examples;

1. Early 2014 when I put the Red Zone's in my engine, I had it up on the stand. I dropped the lifters in and was about to put the intake on and it was after midnight. I was too tired to keep going because the whole fire drill of engine removal, camshaft change etc took most of the day. I threw in the towel and decided that I would put the intake on the next morning and button up the engine. GLAD I DID! The next morning, I was looking over my lash adjustments and I happened to "peer" into the lifter valley and noticed that the pin holding the tie bar in place was not swedged... Surely, that would have been disaterous.

2. Over the past 5 years I've built at least a 50-60 bravo drives, both uppers and lowers. Now, this could be a mercury thing but in general I think it's a metal and quality thing. Gearsets are lasting half as long as they used to. The "color" of the metal is "lighter" (heat treat process). I also notice a difference of between .002 - .003 thou in tolerance when setting up clearnances. The gearsets that are more concentric always last longer. Dating back 7-10 years ago, the tolerance variation I measured were measured in the .001 - .002 range (sometimes 0) and the metal was darker.

In my mind, I blame this all on cheap metals coming from overseas and poor quality in manufacturing, perhaps in Mexico or China.

Just my $.02.

mercury marine makes the majority of their money by selling replacement parts so they don,t want them to last.as long as they get past the warranty period is all they care about.

Panther - great catch !

I agree and don't agree at the same time. Being an OEM, especially in a Hobby sport, they pay fraudulent claims (customer's lying, what supercharger ? marina's lying, etc,etc) all the time. Schit, working for a car dealer, the stuff I'd see from dishonest people was amazing. I was with Toyota during the hay days of the Twin Turbo Supras and in a very wealthy area. Electronic Boost boxes where on most of them and obviously a ton of other stuff. Difference with us was that we where gearheads too so we knew more than the customers thought we did. :)

Is that why GM uses Johnson lifters?

the johnson,s in the ls engines are trouble free from what i hear but smaller and lighter valves and short pushrods help.

like bb said in a different thread,quality parts hardly exist today.

True, we have a pair of LS's in a boat spins 6,200 rpm Titanium Valves. Motors have over 900 hrs and never been apart.

We ordered a relatively expensive set of solid flat tappet lifters from crower for my 440 Mopar engine. They are the lightweight EDM version.
During a late night assembly session, I was washing them in the parts washer and running mineral spirits through the EDM holes to ensure no obstruction.
Would you believe one of 16 had no EDM hole in the face?
How many guys would not have caught it?

Also, with all the buzz about ZDDP and wiping cam lobes on non roller cams, I wonder about the quality of cam cores and the role that plays in the problem.

Even domestic stuff is now subject to offshore competition and, as such has "dumbed down" their quality to compete.

Sad that it has come to this, but the "Walmart" effect has permeated performance products.

Want a laugh at old vs now quality ?

About 20 yrs ago I was putting in a new Crate 5.7 in a K1500 Suburban. One cylinder head had no spark plug holes. True !

I'm gonna find washed up 420's with old cams, flat tappets, and old iron heads, boost them and call it a day lol

I totally agree metals are not what they used to be and are probably more the problem then any of the brands themselves... When I replaced my 420 cam in one of my engines years ago due to bearing contamination, 2 cams had issues breaking in.... I was told back then "metals not what they were" I said eh... how can that be with flat tappet?? makes sense 5 years later..

And yeh, the current cheap $$$ GM SBC roller lifters are great. Wish GM would do the same (including $) for the BBC's

Are there any smelters left in America or is everything now made from recycled junk?

I was able to get a gearset warrantied for a customer earlier this year. On the 2nd oil change (10 hrs) oil had metal in it. Tore it down, took pictures and sent the gears in. I got a new set 60 days later.

Yes, it helped my customer but in the meantime I had to purchased a new gearset on my own dime and fix it because that's how good business works.

Merc did provide a replacement gearset, not a refund, so I had a new set of gears lying around until the next job came along.... They never did tell me why it failed, I just got a new set without any other info.

Bottom line, it's profoundly different then it was a while back.

Yeah man, talk about luck!!!! My eye just happened to catch it. It just looked off as I glaced down. I looked closer and then gave it the old stank eye! lol

Wound up getting creative and swedging it myself in a press with a punch. Ran it the whole season without issue! I sent pictures to Isky.

And what was their response?

Their response was simple; send it back to us and we'll send you a new one. To which I told them I fixed it myself but wanted them to know what happened.

Here's another example of the finely crafted products we're dealing with these days.... I don't usually run a holley pump anyway but as you can see, two different pumps, total junk...
[ATTACH=CONFIG]562556[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]562557[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]562558[/ATTACH]

Believe it or not, I had the same thing happen with a cast Holley mechanical pump back in the late 80's.

Chrome wont getcha home ....lol