There has been this huge problem with Pontiac (well, all brands) ft lifters being soft junk and wiping out cams.
Tool steel solid flat tappet lifters are available for Pontiacs from Howards. And they are expensive for a ft lifter. BUT you can spend stupid money on some Comp Chevy tool steel lifters with DLC coating, 1900$. These are 400 bucks.
The Howards lifters are listed as GM generic for use in 400-455 engines. You might need custom length pushrods.
I know you can use Chevy sft lifters in a Pontiac. Back in the 80s my first custom Pontiac cam by Dan Whitmore used BBC solid lifter as there was a Pontiac shortage back then. He sold me custom pushrods for that engine. Still have all that stuff.
So it sure would seem like these Howards would fix a big problem for us. I know, they are solids, but if you have good roller rockers and run a stud girdle keeping everything double tight I have found no lash movement.
Dan used to make hft lifters into solids. So someone could be able to make these into hft lifters if they really wanted to. Provided you had the correct parts.
In the picture it sure looks like they have a EDM hole in them. Even though its not listed.
Researching the very expensive Comp tool steel lifters their base models can be used with cast cams. Nitrided or not.
Their higher end DLC coated versions have to be used with steel cams.
And billet steel Pontiac sft cams are not available for us. I even asked Tim G if it was possible to grind down a Pontiac SR cam into a sft cam and it will not work. No cores anyway.
https://www.jegs.com/i/Howards-Cams/...05-16/10002/-1