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There are companies out there that will take your old lifters & regrind the cam end to new specifications. Can't recall who they are though.... someone in the northwest. Break 'em in like a new set of lifters.
Edit: a quick search turned up Oregon Cam Grinding for lifter regrinding.
I still think that the lifters get too much blame for flat tappet camshaft problems. I think that most of the problems come from cams that are ground like crap.
Check out this photo of a used flat tappet cam that came in. It looks like it was rough ground and then Parkerized. I assume that it must have been the lifters' job to smooth out the surface after it wore the phosphate coating off of the high spots. Parkerizing can be used to hide a lot of sins and maybe the real problem was that mass marketed flat tappet cams were just being produced to a price point that was too low to allow for any real quality. Did it work? Sometimes.
I think a lot of cam & lifter failures are due to operator error as well.
I've read some pretty stupid stuff on these online forums.
One guy said he started his new engine & let it idle for 10 minutes, then he shut it off. He wanted to make sure it would run first, he'd break it in in a few months when he got the time. Good luck with that.
Another guy couldn't get his fresh engine to start, said he spent a couple of hours cranking it. Went thru a starter & battery. If he ever did get it to start, what are the chances of the cam lasting?
Lots of stories like that out there.Then they blame the cam failure on bad parts.
You want the engine to fire instantly, & never go below 2000 RPM's for at least 20 minutes. Cranking the engine for hours isn't going to work.
