barnett468

hi gun jam;

i have built engines for a zillion years and have been a comp cam and crane dealer every since comp cams started business. and i had to replace a new comp hydraulic roller ;ofter on a new concours engine i just sealed up because it was leaking. when i started the car with the valve cover off it shot oil all over 3 feet.

i reciived a set of solid lifters for a hi po engine and the bottom looked like they were surfaced on a bench grinder. i returned them and the next set was the same. o took them to dragster engine friend and asked what he thought and he just ;laughed. they would have killed a cam in 10 minutes. i know several other people first hand that had ticking noises with the comps and internal failures and external failures. many of the comp lifters are made in india. some of the high end rollers are purportedly made by morel which is ok but due to the continual probs with the other comp lifters, i will never ever use them or sell them again, however, i use a lot of their cams.

there are no real good hydraulic flat tappet lifters i know of unless there are some left over old stock from crane which went belly up twice and the last time they were bought by s and s cycles but i have no idea if they are making lifters or just selling old stock.

morel does not make hydraulic flat tappet lifters.

joihnson got screwed and lost some equipment years ago and never recivered, they now have only 10 employees. i can post the work and cell number of the current mgr if you want and he will gladly tell you who had their lifters and if they are back in production again or not.

i have used solid lifters from howards which are xlnt but have no idea about their hydraulics., if they are made by johnson i would use them. i also like the guys at howards.

delphi is an oem mfgr but they are made in mexico and other places and the oem lifters are good but the aftermarket ones have a slightly spotty record. they make them for pioneer and possibly for mellings.

apparently good lifters are hard to make. one guy even broke a morel lifter but he may have not been using the right one for his app.

ok did i confuse you yet?

i hate lifters, lol.


PS - As far as roller rockers there is scorpion and jessel and one other with two names. i forgot at the moment, lol..

Gun Jam

So the set of Comp cams hyd roller lifters I had that kept breaking oil metering disc is no surprise? This oil metering disc would crack like glass and then the fragments would sink to the bottom and finally jam up the check valve and then collapse the lifter. They would last about 2000 miles.

This turned out to be a huge pain in the *** because I was running link bar and would have to remove the head to extract the lifter. I sent photos to comp + dead lifters and they sent me free of charge the super trick upgraded ones with the radius on the bottom next to the roller wheel I suspect these are the Morel ones you speak of. Those have been running well. I am running trick flow pre assembled head for use with hyd roller cam. This new set of lifters probably has about 7k maybe more on them and no problems yet!

boogerschnot

Barnett,

This thing is totally stock. A code , with addition of the Holley carb and removal of the emissions stuff. 68ish. Thousand miles. Id also like to know where you are going with the comp cam idea.

Gun, I don't have a tach, but it was spinning at about 1300 rpm in the video, ll and cold. but that sound is totall different than the bouncing uneven sound it was making at first.. but then again the RPMs were lower and the engine pretty warm when it started. I'm betting the lifter. Thanks for the help.

Looks like you two were at work while I typed..

barnett468

IF YOU HAVE COMP LIFTERS AND A LIFTER TICK. IT IS A HIGH PROBABILITY THAT IT IS THE LIFTER. THEY SELL A FEW DIFFERENT TYPES. ANOTHER BRAND HAS A SIMILAR PROB BUT THEY NEED TO BE SET TO 2 1/2 TURNS IN FROM 0 LASH. YES THAT'S NUTS.

MAKE SURE THE PUSH ROD IS NOT PLUGGED.

MAKE SURE THERE IS OIL COMING UP FROM THE LIFTER.

TRY THE LIFTER AT 1 1/4 TURN IN FROM O LASH. IF IT TICKS TURN IT TO 1/3RD TURN TURN FROM 0 LASH. THIS SETTING QUIETS MANY COMP LIFTERS. IF IT STILL TICKS IT CAN BE THE LIFTER OR THE CAM GOING FLAT.

IF IT TICKS AND THERE IS NO OIL SQUIRTING OUT AND NO METAL IN THE OIL TRY A BOTTLE OF LIFTER OR ENGINE CLEANER. LUCAS MAKES SOME KILLER STUFF. YOUR LIFTERS MIGHT SIMPLY BE VARNISHED UP. IT WILL WORK WITHIN 30 MINUTES TO AROUND 10 HOURS OF DRIVING TIME. RISLONE MIGHT TAKE LONGER.

DO NOT USE SYNTHETIC ENG OIL.

barnett468

Ahhhh, ha, ha...ok sorry you are correct.


quite possible. the morel ones look ultra high end. lunati also sells morel for less than morels from a morel dealer.

unfortunately, you have to beat this info out of some of the cam mfgs. some lifter bodies are cast overseas but they are either machined and assembled here or just assembled here.

boogerschnot

I was thinking about dumping in some seafoam or similar engine cleaner to try and break up some sludge/grime that I see accumulated in the heads. I ran 1/2 diese/engine oil once back in the 90's in an old truck to clean it out as a suggestion from an uncle. This engine Sat for about 8 years.. I got it running and then it Sat for another 8 months or so..

barnett468

hi . . i never used sea foam but have heard of it. . if you use it and the noise remains it does not mean the lifters are not varnished it might mean that the seafoam is simply not the best product for the job. . i know the lucas renmnoves varnish . . a 56k mile engine should look brand new under the valve cover unless the oil was never changed. .m

Starfury

Barnett, I'm sure you have lots of experience with Lucas...but I personally will never use it. I've seen aeration effects caused by Lucas added to oil, and I'm not keen to have anything like that happen to my engine.

Maybe the synthetic stuff is a little better than the conventional, but I haven't seen any studies on it.

barnett468

hi thanks for the info.

are you referring to the lucas engine cleaner?

did you see foam on the dipstick or something?

i never looked for that, guess i should have.

if it does foam, maybe its because it has a lot of detergents in it. i know when i wash my clothes or my dishes, i like to see lots of suds, otherwise, i don't think its cleaning very well, lol.

the sea foam ,may work just as well and or may foam too, i just have no idea.

rislone has been around for 100 years but i never used it to devarnish lifters. it might work as well too, however, again, i just don't know.

hopefully it is just varnish and the sea foam will fix it cuz if he needs a new lifter...well good luck finding one that will actually work these days.

hey he can always just put solid lifters on that cam. it will not only run better but it will also supposed to tick.

Starfury

First, suds are the opposite of what you want when washing clothes, dishes, your car, etc. Suds are lots of bubbles, and lots of bubbles mean lots of surface tension, which is bad. The whole point of soap is to act as a surfactant, lowering the surface tension of water. You're essentially trying to make the water "wetter," helping it wash away dirt, oils, etc. Too much soap has the opposite effect, raising the surface tension and reducing the water's ability to wash away dirt and grime.

Back on topic... I'm referring to the Lucas engine oil additive. If they have another oil additive, I'm not aware of it. The point of the oil additive is to thicken the oil, reducing seal leaking issues, bearing knocks, etc. It's great at keeping oil from being squeezed out from in between bearings, but the side effect of this thickening process is significantly increased surface tension, which causes aeration in some (not all) situations. This is why you absolutely cannot run Lucas in a Ford 6.0 diesel (or other diesels with HP oil pumps); the high pressure oil pump quickly turns the altered oil into a foamy mess, which then destroys the engine. There are many newer gas engines (commonly BMW, Mercedes, and Audi) that have oil spray nozzles that cause the same problem. High speed gear boxes (m/t's and some differentials) can also suffer the same issues, as the ring gear is constantly sloshing through the oil.

I'm not saying oil foaming is going to happen in every vehicle with Lucas (excepting the 6.0's - there's even a warning on the bottle for those), but it's a potential problem, and not one I'd like to see in my own vehicle. I've seen the remains of engines with foamy oil problems, and I've seen lucas in lab tests causing foaming. That's enough of a link for me.

Soafoam and Marvel Mystery Oil are different types of additives. They are petroleum-based products that act like detergents, cleaning out engine deposits very well. Seafoam in particular is more of a cleaning-specific additive, but the catch is that you shouldn't really run it for long periods of time (moderate amounts of Marvel can be run in the oil/fuel constantly). I'll put about 1/3 can in a dirty crankcase and run it for a day or two before changing the oil.

I do agree about the lifters. Comp Cams used to make their own lifters, and were one of the last quality manufacturers, but they started farming the job out years ago and quality has dropped significantly.

I run Rhoads lifters in my motor. They seem to be of good quality, and they work as advertised. I wind my motor up to 6k regularly and have no problems with them whatsoever. They do cause some valvetrain clatter as the valves smack into the seats, but that's the cost of improved low-end power.