[NeighborsComplaint]

Originally Posted by Schurkey

The OEM has to warranty the engine for 50K miles at any one of 30,000 service departments, and all the customer needs is to have a VIN number and an odometer reading to prove the warranty is valid. The aftermarket "retrofit" lifter is warrantied on an individual, customer-specific basis. (i.e., If they buy a lot from us, we'll warranty a set now and then. If this is a D-I-Y, he'd better have a receipt and be within 1--3--6--12 months on a vehicle that probably isn't driven 10,000 miles/year, and maybe less than 1000?)

Aftermarket parts are often bottom-feeder junk with little or no QA, and potentially designed by amateurs/hobbyists/enthusiasts, and then invisibly re-designed by the actual offshore manufacturer by using inferior steel, improper heat-treat, imprecise machining, etc. OEM parts may be imported from the same hell-hole, but they're studied, inspected, verified, statistically-analyzed. They're produced in sufficient quantity to get "volume pricing".

There's exceptions. For example, GM built the Citation; and advertised how many millions of dollars went into the development and testing to assure a high-quality, dependable, economical vehicle. It was thoroughly engineered: Apparently, they spend one million dollars to design the car, and then spent four more million to carve all the quality and production costs back out of every single system. OTOH, Moog built a reputation on it's "Problem-Solver" line of parts that (used to) be a trustworthy upgrade from OEM--OEM with the mistakes and cost-cutting removed.

The lifters being proposed for use with the Injun plates are not OEM. They are aftermarket, off the shelf lifters OEM style replacements. Chances are they are also made in China.