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Thanks Dave. That is great to know. I will certainly keep the cam and one day get it repaired. Also, the lifters supplied with my new Howards cam are identical in appearance to the ones that came in my Lunati kit.
A cam core like that one costs more than $350 now. Keep it for a regrind core for a future build or if you decide to try something different in your engine this will save you money and it will be every bit as good as starting with a new core.
As far as I know Howard sells Morel hydraulic roller lifters which are generally nice quality. I've used quite a few of them with no bearing failures but I have had a couple where the hydraulic mechanism messed up and collapsed. I don't understand what's going on right now with lifter failures but it sure seems like it is a bigger problem than it used to be with the roller bearings which should be trouble free for a long time in a typical hydraulic roller application.
Over the weekend I installed the new cam and lifter set. Install went well. Startup was good as she fired and ran right away. Almost immediately, I heard the tap of a loud lifter, very noticeable from the passenger bank. And again, as it warmed up, it got quiet again. By 140, the tap was gone. Otherwise, engine sounded great. Ran her up to full temp and shut it down. Later and after it cooled off a bit, fired up again and the tick was back.
My Lunati, with the same lifters, followed the same pattern. Cold tick/tap at startup and disappeared once around 140F. Eventually that tap turned into a squeak. My assumption is the tap/squeak was the failed lifter that boogered my cam.
Lifter preload was not identified with the cam set. Appeared .050 is common from my research.
Running Rotella 15w40
At this point I am a combination of frustrated and discouraged. Argh. I just want to drive my pickup. I've never had an FE that was this troublesome.
Hylift Johnson makes a hydraulic roller lifter too but I have not(knowingly) used them. .050 preload should be fine with a normal travel hydraulic lifter. I guess you could always ditch the hydraulics and just run the cam as a tight lash solid roller. About .009 or .010 lash should run pretty quietly and work well.
Maybe retainer to guide clearance, coil bind, etc. I would inspect the valve train geometry very close being as the same thing happened over again.
I was wondering about the spring loads too. I have used the regular non reduced travel Morel hydraulic rollers with 140 seat and around 390lbs open with a 1.73 rocker ratio with no problems before. Could they somehow accidentally have 250 on the seat and 600 open? Maybe.
I talked to Howards about my setup. They recommended the following.
1. Do NOT use 15w40. Better to use 5w30 or 10w30
2. Preload of .050 is ok
After changing oil to 10w30, tick was decreased but not completely gone.
I took it for a short test drive and made two observations. First, lack of power and a miss. Second was excessive exhaust smoke from the 1-4 bank. Pulled the rocker cover and found the #2 Intake rocker was slid off of the valve and the pushrod was not seated in the rocker. During reassembly I know for certain that the rocker and pushrod were aligned and good. Pulled the rocker shaft and reseated. Also checked the pushrod and it is NOT bent. Got it back together, cranked by hand and confirmed all valves operated as expected. With the rocker cover back on, fired up the engine and after about 30 seconds heard a mechanical pop and it started to miss. Pulled the rocker cover off again and the same rocker had slid over and off the pushrod.
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