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 !