[P@blo]

Originally Posted by 67Lemons

HFT failures at break in or shortly thereafter seems to be one of the hot rod worlds greatest mysteries. Some folks don’t have issues while others doing the same exact thing do, it’s no wonder why a lot of folks go roller.

Rollers have the same faulure maybe worse. If the problem went away with a roller I would say yes. But new problems filled the place of the old but take blocks with them. Not good for the hobby.

The industry will push roller because it is a big cow to milk as far as parts sales goes. Not much money to be made on the HFT stuff really so obviously they will want to sell you 2-3 grand of stuff instead of 2-3 hundred.

Just wait until guys won't buy your blocks because you ran a roller lifter it's coming...

[Formulajones]

I go roller for different reasons, none of which are any worries over flat tappet cams. It has more to do with what the goals are for the engine and it's intended purpose.
I've said it a million times, most failures that I've seen, and ones even posted on this forum have been self inflicted. Like I've said, stay away from the cheap china parts and fleabay deals and your chances improve greatly. With that said, even with the subpar parts, It's such a small percentage of failure overall when you consider how huge the market is that it's really only a hand full of worry warts preaching the whole gloom and doom thing.

It's not like this is a new thing, it's been going on for decades, the only difference now is we have the internet.

[grivera]

Before the high zinc oils, all we had was a decent oil with an additive like GM EOS lubricant. I don't see how using an oil with an additive is the issue, but could see where no additive at all may be the problem.

[67Lemons]

Never heard of Cam Shield, do you think it helped?

[mgarblik]

Originally Posted by 67Lemons

Never heard of Cam Shield, do you think it helped?

I can't really say for sure. I ended up with about 50 packets of the stuff when I was helping to settle Joe Mondello's estate about 10 years ago. Joe obviously liked it. It looks like many of the gray, molly based, thicker paste products. Figured it couldn't hurt and I have a bunch. It's still available. Just checked.

[glhs#116]

My opinions come from a more general deduction. The OEMs didn’t break in cams. They just built and delivered. Yes, those were gentle low lift cams. But also on many measures the oil was worse on the 70s.

From my own experience I have done a lot of the right things and had lifters and cams go. My current cam is perfect even though I struggled to start it for the break in for a while before realising the distributor was 180 degrees out. It has been in six years and a decent amount of racing.

The cam I just put in a month ago fired up straight away and got oil pressure in seconds. It is gone on at least two lobes. Hence my old cam will be going back in.

My opinion is that the QA just isn’t always there these days to have the right surface profile and hardness on the cams and lifters we can buy today. Hence all the elaborate procedures.

Sam

[Holeshot71]

Originally Posted by glhs#116

My opinions come from a more general deduction. The OEMs didn’t break in cams. They just built and delivered. Yes, those were gentle low lift cams. But also on many measures the oil was worse on the 70s.

From my own experience I have done a lot of the right things and had lifters and cams go. My current cam is perfect even though I struggled to start it for the break in for a while before realising the distributor was 180 degrees out. It has been in six years and a decent amount of racing.

The cam I just put in a month ago fired up straight away and got oil pressure in seconds. It is gone on at least two lobes. Hence my old cam will be going back in.

My opinion is that the QA just isn’t always there these days to have the right surface profile and hardness on the cams and lifters we can buy today. Hence all the elaborate procedures.

Sam

Hey Sam, what brand cam and lifters did you use and what was the profile?

[glhs#116]

Originally Posted by Holeshot71

Hey Sam, what brand cam and lifters did you use and what was the profile?

It was a custom cam grind done for me by Jay. Looked really nice. Max lift around .507. I had the V-Pro Max Rhoads lifters with it. I should mention, the Rhoads lifters were bought earlier this year as the ones I bought back when I got the cam in 2019 had surface rusted. The cam was perfect. It's making me suspect the lifters but they did look fine and all were rotating initially.

I should be tearing it apart on the weekend. I'll take some pics.

Sam

[67Lemons]

That’s disappointing to hear using a quality cam & lifters, I’d think the Rhoads especially would have helped successfully break in the cam.

[Tim Corcoran]

Originally Posted by 67Lemons

That’s disappointing to hear using a quality cam & lifters, I’d think the Rhoads especially would have helped successfully break in the cam.

As a side note, Rhodes are made by Hy-Lift Johnson then modified by Rhodes.

[Formulajones]

And Hylift is better known for their high quality hydraulic roller lifters. Johnson, a different company are considered the go to for flat tappets.

However Ive never seen or experienced a problem with Rhodes lifters and Jay said he checked over the cam and gave it a clean bill of health.

[Tim Corcoran]

Have had several hyd and solid flat tappets over the years and had one failure, this was an 068 clone like 20 years ago. Didn't fail on break in but sometime after. Recently had a hyd roller failure, axle pins on the roller coming out.