Solid roller lifters?
 

Whats everybody running solid roller using for lifters these days. My last builds were isky red zones needle which at the time were a great lifter. Also opinions on needle vs bushing. Do bushed rollers really rob any noticeable power.

Basically to cut to the chase what's a good choice for solid roller lifter on 725 plus hp max @ 6,000-6,500

I would go morel and not look back. A lot camshaft people sell them branded under there name. Very good lifter..

Isky Red Zones. Plus they will rebuild them for ~$18 ea later down the road. Look and perform brand new when you get them back!

Stay with needle right? Bushed just seems like potential unforseeable problems. One of those sounded like a great idea at the time but... So sticking with needle.

i have a set of isky bushed in a pro charged 565,about 30 hours on them so far.i have the engine in the shop now and i am going to pull the intake and have a look but not expecting any problems as it is running great.

have you seen one with the needles slid out?it is not pretty.

2 motors Isky .904 bushed .765" lift 6,500 rpm .000 change in lash 4 seasons
2 motors Isky .904 bushed .765" lift 7,500 rpm .000 change in lash 4 seasons
1 motor Morel .904 needles .721" lift 6,200 rpm all the time stud rockers no girdle .000 change 200 hours
1 motor Comp Elite .904 needles .721" lift 6,200 rpm end of second season failure at the ramp
1 race boat motor Jesel .842 needles .800" lift 6,500 rpm 6 race seasons .000 change in lash. These lifters were in a pleasure boat motor for unknown hours b4 they were put in the race motor.

We have a/b tested the Isky lifters same dyno same day and they are down 30hp over needles. Are they nice? Yes. Do they rob power yes. However if you are going to do regular maintenance. I don't see that they are needed. If you are of the lazy type with maintenance I think they are a better option. All depends on the owner and how much they care about there boat. Myself I prefer Jesel's in my own stuff. I don't mind running through the valves every week. I don't think there is one brand
Lifter that is a fits all. You have to look at the entire package. We run a MINIMUM of 7/16" .160 wall pushrods in everything sometimes 1/2" on the exhaust even 1/2" dual taper on the intake. DO NOT used 3/8" pushrods and any kind of camshaft. We also use Titanium Retainers and Titanium locks in everything. We have a boat with a pair of 1200hp turbo motors with the same Titanium Retainers for 15 years. Actually I borrowed the locks out of the one motor to put my new heads together. And they are 15 years old. The key to success is a well matched package. You can spend all the money on everything but if the package doesn't work together you are not going to be a happy camper. Keep the oil pressure up at idle. If you have to turn the idle up. And don't idle for long periods of time. I think this contributes to longer life. Basically run the piss out of it as often as possible...

The nice thing about the Jesel's is there is no up-charge for larger diameter bodies with larger wheels. The .842's cost as much as a .937 at that point it's a nobrainer to step up to a .937 lifter. If you go the Morel route keep in mind they do not move the oil band up in there larger diameter lifters. If you use a higher lift cam or larger diameter cam core. You have to use a bushing that moves the oil band up or machine a groove in the lifter. Morel makes a bushing that moves the oil band up. They only come in one size and require a ridiculous amount of machining. I do highly recommend larger diameter lifters. Although I have a bunch of 55mm cam blocks I'm not totally sold on them at this point. I am however sold on the larger lifters.

Why are the bushed down on power? And 30 hp to boot. That seems like a lot.

Call I sky and ask them. They claim 7-10 we saw 30. My guess more friction...

Over the years I've used Ultradyne ( long time ago, now Bullet), Crane, Isky and Harold's (supposedly Morel?). I've had the best success with Crane and Isky (red zone needle).

I'm not seeing any love for Johnsons. Are they just currently out of favor now?

I believe Ed morel held the patent on bushed lifters way back in the late 70's or early
80's.

I've never used their solids. I have a few friends who used their hydraulics without any issues.

Crower 66291H, .782 lift, 1000lb springs 7500RPM, changed them at 100 hours just because.
Crower 66291H, .782 lift, 725lb springs 6500RPM, changed them at 200 hours just because. Both sets were fine when removed.

Both sets were .742

I haven't tried them myself but I've heard the Crower's are some of the best.

The supercat engine we took apart had solid crower rollers on a 55mm cam. Odly enough, they were .842 diameter.

I sold them on eBay as I had no idea how much time they had on them and I wanted to use a .903 solid roller.

I bought morel as they are local to me and Ed was present at the machine shop when the bushed bores were opened up for the bigger lifters.
Dyno time only so far

Didnt morel make the solid roller lifters for crower ?

Johnson

That is good life. What where you using for valve lash ? Plus, I'm assuming rocker shaft set up ? Edit in: LOl, just saw the 1000lb springs so definately shaft rocker.

Cool !

Did you do the oiling mod like Black Baja just spoke of ?

We didn't. It was already done due to the exsisting 55mm cam.

The H in the Crower part number is for the high pressure pin oiling option, never run without it. Valve lash was .016 hot, intake and exhaust. Definitely shaft rockers, T&D and Crower stainless.

Were you running a Crower cam?

Bullet in both,

No doubt Mark Spec'd those springs...

No actually a long time ago when all of the techs were pushing to light of springs we started bumping up the pressure to keep the lifters following the lobes. That's just where we ended up trying to control the cams we were/ are running.

Were they the old Ultradyne lobes?

We tried those but no, more like the Comp Cams HXL lobes that we ran.

What I'm hearing here is regardless of bushed robbing power you prefer them over needle unless their Jessel. Regardless 904 over 842 is a plus and you really can't go wrong with isky's or morels or others like crower severe duty etc that come from morel.

Given I'm a weekend boater go out for either a few hours and run reasonably hard with a few stops. Or long distance runs cruising at 3,500. Very little idle time. We have very short channel and litterally on Lake Michigan in 5 minutes. I rarely idle under 1,200 unless docking and really trying to pizz somebody off. I do my own maintenance and very particular with annual tear downs regardless. Check valve lash, bearings, lifters, spring pressures, rockers. Pretty basic.

So needle or bushed?? Although Jessel builds a fantastic lifter their not in budget.

I heard the bushed was a little more finicky with oil brand/weight etc. frequent oil changes due to dirty oil wearing on bushing however I do frequent oil changes anyway.

Btw gonna stay with . 842. If other than a weekender for two three months out of the year or was building all out race engines I'd without a doubt go larger.

I would do crane or morel you don't run hard long your real hours at cruse think you will get a lot of time out of a set of lifters with no worries as long as spring pressure is responsible low. That's my though. Think you could go150hrs on lifters without a problem. Have you had any failures?

Even back in the day? Like say, a few years ago? I thought the crower solids had bigger wheels and fork style lifter even in the .842 diameters up till recently? I know the hydraulic crowers my buddy had bought several years back, were .750 wheel fork body. They looked like the morel. I never put them side by side on a bench to compare though.

Only failures I've had were with hyd roller lifters. And it wasn't the rollers... I use a very reputable machine/speed shop and they still use cranes to this day with great success. They've been using them since mid 80's til current. I kinda forgot about that to be honest.

Btw I might drop the hammers and buzz across Lake Michigan from time to time but that's only 65-70 miles.

What rpm when you go 65miles?

Low spring pressure will cause more lifter problems than high pressure. Jumping over the nose or bouncing off the set takes the bearings out and hammers through the cams hard surface. Just my opinion.

Its getting near impossible to keep this straight anymore. So much buying out and or merging and brother sister companies it's rediculous. Ya know. I was pretty certain crower SD were morel lifters also at least a few years ago anyway.

I have not had that problem but I did tare the lobe face off on the lift side of the lobe that's from the stainless 2.400 intake valve.
210 on the seat would run low 6k.

Among other things... Been down that road. Never again... but I see what he's saying.