Hey guys,

I have recently finished building my 410 for my highboy. I have a Lunati Voodoo roller cam in it that came with lifters, springs, and timing set. I have idled it for about about 20 minutes and still have a bad tick on the left side. I pulled the valve cover and found that one of the lifters has not pumped up yet. I can push down on the rocker and compress the lifter pretty easily. I called Lunati Tech line and they told me to put a can of Sea foam in the crankcase and idle for 30 minutes. He stated that they use a water based lubricant to test the lifters at the factory and sometimes they are hard to bleed. I'm not sure that I want to add Sea foam to a brand new engine with only 20 minutes of idle time on it. Wanted to know if anyone has heard of doing this or has had similar problems?

Thanks in advance

 

When you say "idle" for 20 minutes, you mean running engine at 2000-2500 RPM correct? Just so anybody reading is clear on that. Once the cam is broken in extended idling should be avoided.

 

I'd say about 1500 rpm. I didn't want to run it too high with the amount of ticking going on.

 

IMHO, if you read the MSDS of Seafoam, I don't think you will want to put it in your engine...…..the only thing I can think of is it does have pale oil in it (which you can buy)...but what are they trying to achieve?

 

The tech said that the petroleum distillates in Sea foam force out the water based lubricant that they are shipped with. I would think the break in oil would do that just fine. All the other lifters are working properly. I have just one that is soft. They are retrofit hydraulic roller lifters so they are linked together in sets of 2. The other lifter of that set is working good as are all the others.

 

I'm not crazy about putting anything in the engine oil; I'd try a new lifter before I did that in a newly built engine.

Agree with Tedster9...vary rpm 2000 to 2500 during camshaft break in unless there's something going on. Idling won't splash oil around where it needs to be.

I don't think you need a break in for roller lifters, btw.

 

I called Lunati before I started it the first time to check on their recommended break in procedure and they did say that no break in was needed for the cam. I do like to keep the RPM's up a little to move the oil around.

 

So I decided to pull the lifter in question to see if i could find out what was up. I actually didn't have to pull the intake (thankfully). Just used some Jedi magic (2 extendable magnets) to pull the lifters through the center opening and found this






The lifter is missing the oil feed port. Does not speak well for Quality Control at Lunati (or wherever Lunati gets their lifters). I don't even see how this could have passed their so called in house water based lubricant testing either. Partially my fault for not inspecting them thoroughly before installing. Also, since I didn't buy them directly from Lunati, they won't just send me a replacement. I have to go through the place I bought it from which is odd in my opinion. I've never had issues with getting warranty parts from the manufacturer even though they were bought through a reseller. Just had Holley send me a replacement Oxygen Sensor for my Sniper. All they needed was a proof of purchase. Only time will tell how long it takes to get this handled.

 

Interesting story, and yeah, there's no break-in on roller cam and lifters

Just goes to show, inspect everything.

Whenever I hear "Seafoam" I shudder. But that's another story for some other time

 

I'd be interested to hear that story considering no amount of Seafoam would have fixed this problem.

 

He's got a roller cam

 

Looks like two lifters missing the oil port.

 

Good catch!!!!!!!!!!!!! The reason they are doing this is like many mfg's, they have had retailers purchase items that they thought were "real' and actually "fakes"....it helps the mfg ID where the issue really is....the retailer, distributor, or ?

 

I only see one.

 

I only see one, two pictures of the same thing.