Roller Rocker Tip Pitted?
 

I've got a 347 that I've ran for a total of about 30 minutes now, 3 full heat cycles. It's got some Twisted Wedge heads, a Comp Cams xe274hr hyd. roller cam, and Trick Flow 1.6 roller rockers. The valvetrain has been noisy since I got it running well, so today I popped the valve covers to inspect it and adjust the rockers down for a bit more preload. One of my roller rockers has a pitted tip, although the valve stem tip is perfect with no signs of galling. This roller also doesn't spin completely freely - there are some rough spots as I turn it.

Failed needle bearing? I'm guessing it's not ok to run it like this...

Here's a picture of the wear on the tip. Sorry for the extreme size, I don't have a downscaled version available on the web:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net...80172906_o.jpg

edit your image when you upload it to a hosting site, they all should allow you to edit size, can't hardly see a thing at that size......also what length push rods are you using?? as well as brand of roller rockers???

I can make out the clear definition of a circle, meaning something tiny and round pressed those pits. The force of crushing whatever it was probably cranked up the bearings a bit.

Educated guess, I have no idea.

Sorry MJR, I was in a rush and didn't have time to put it anywhere else besides facebook....

mattdel, that was my thought too. I'm going to be draining the oil and checking for particles in both the magnetic drain plugs and the filter.

On a related note, I've spoken to the guy who machined my heads and he thinks I might have some issues between the lifter oiling grooves and the oil channels in the block, although he isn't familiar with the Dart SHP blocks. Woody says that as long as the base circle of my cam is the same as the OEM cam, these lifters should be fine in the SHP, but I can't seem to find any information online to compare the base circle of the xe274hr to the stock hyd. roller cam... all I know is that I can prime with a drill for 10+ minutes, and I'll see oil everywhere but the rockers with 60psi on the gauge... they just get the tiniest trickle, even when I turn the engine over by hand while priming.

Oh yeah, the pushrods are 6.700". I checked the geometry using the sharpie on the valve stem method, with a solid mockup lifter. The wear pattern is right in the center, with very little sweep back and forth.

The rockers are the Trick Flow 1.6 full roller rockers, TFS-51400510.