[lust4speed]

The slope on a cam lobe and the taper on a lifter have a lot of margin for error. You need slope and you need taper but it's not rocket science. Now what does come up and bites you hard is lousy metallurgy. It takes a really soft lifter to produce this in 15 minutes on the break-in stand. This was at the start of the crisis and cams were failing one after another. I found that Crower components were holding up and the setup that replaced the failed assembly is 16 years old with 12,000 miles so far and holding up good. That was years ago and while things have gotten better most of the lifters supplied are still softer than what they should be. A soft lifter will take out even a really good cam once the wear removes the taper.

As far as flat tappet vs roller sales, I can make more money through volume of sales. I sell six flat tappet assemblies for every roller and my overall profit will be greater. Unfortunately, if I unethically reduce my costs even further by producing an inferior product my per unit profit increases substantially. Of course the inevitable comes up and bites me when the cheaply made product fails.