[Lifetime Goat]

I am running a Melling RA4 cam with Comp Cams lifter thru Butler 852B which have been discontinued. The valve train is pretty noisy with these lifters and I was wondering is anyone had some ideas. I have lashed at zero plus a half turn and now 3/4 turn and they clack like heck. Oil pressure is at 65lb. Could it be these are made for high load valve springs and my running stock is causing this? Any thoughts welcome.

[Jim Moshier]

Sorry to hear this, Have you tried thicker oil? going from 10-30 to 10-40 or 20-50? what kind of oil -Dino or Synthetic? I have heard the Amsoil Z-rod works well for the FT lifters.

[PunchT37]

Heads, and pushrod length? Rockers?

[25stevem]

Are all of the 16 valves loud?
If you only have a few I would pull a valve cover and check if the push rods on the noisy ones are spinning around like the quite ones.

Every time a valve opens and closes the lifter and the push rod should spin a little.

If the noisy ones are not spinning as much as the quite ones then you have lifter and cam lobe failure taking place.


If the length of your push rods is not making for good geometry then some rockers could be hitting the retainers depending on if your running heads that have had a valve job.

[54nomore]

If they are the Magnum series lifters, they are designed to run at near zero lash. 2 to 4 thousandths lash as I recall.

[Tim Corcoran]

If this is a flat tappet hyd cam then I would replace them with Hy-Lift Johnson 951R lifters they are the best most trouble free hyd flat tappet lifter and made in the USA.

[Schurkey]

What is the lifter-to-bore clearance?

[242177P]

Originally Posted by Lifetime Goat

I am running a Melling RA4 cam with Comp Cams lifter thru Butler 852B which have been discontinued. The valve train is pretty noisy with these lifters and I was wondering is anyone had some ideas. I have lashed at zero plus a half turn and now 3/4 turn and they clack like heck. Oil pressure is at 65lb. Could it be these are made for high load valve springs and my running stock is causing this? Any thoughts welcome.

Are you by any chance running OE valvesprings?

[Cliff R]

Try bottoming them out and backing them up 1/2 a turn vs going to zero lash and down 1/2-3/4 turns.

Another option is to bottom them out with a .020" feeler gauge between the rocker and valve tip. Just make sure you are fully on the base circle of the cam when making the adjustments......

[1968GTO421]

Originally Posted by Tim Corcoran

If this is a flat tappet hyd cam then I would replace them with Hy-Lift Johnson 951R lifters they are the best most trouble free hyd flat tappet lifter and made in the USA.

Yes, I have the 951R lifters recommended to me years ago on this forum.
"They are the best most trouble free hyd flat tappet lifter and made in the USA"
Agree totally with this.

[Lifetime Goat]

The geometry is correct as it was checked prior to assemble. I think the lifters were supposed to be a Butler version of an anti pump up lifter that has been discontinued. Oil pressure is at 65 at 1000 rpm and it does have a RAIV style valve spring set up. At this point I am going to take another look with the valve covers off to make sure everything looks right and maybe just change to the lifters.

[michaelfind]

Originally Posted by Cliff R

Try bottoming them out and backing them up 1/2 a turn vs going to zero lash and down 1/2-3/4 turns.

Another option is to bottom them out with a .020" feeler gauge between the rocker and valve tip. Just make sure you are fully on the base circle of the cam when making the adjustments......

Sorry for what is probably an ignorant question, but what do you mean by bottom them out? As in tighten until it will go no further, then back off 1/2 turn? I absolutely respect your expertise but I've never heard of this before. Maybe I'm not understanding what you mean.

[Tim Corcoran]

Hydraulic lifters have a spring in them and a certain amount of travel, this is easier to determine before the lifter is full of oil. The plunger will only depress a given amount this is what is called the travel. When there is no pressure on the lifter the spring pushes the cup up to the top. If you push down on the cup it will bottom out, most lifter manufactures recommend setting the preload at 1/2 of the total travel. To determine 1/2 the travel, with the plunger at the top you turn the poly lock until the plunger bottoms out and you make a note of how many turns of the poly lock then divide in half and that is the correct setting. Some lifters are more sensitive to how much preload you set them at. What Cliff is suggesting is screw the poly lock down untill the plunger bottoms out then back off the poly lock 1/2 turn.

[michaelfind]

Originally Posted by Tim Corcoran

Hydraulic lifters have a spring in them and a certain amount of travel, this is easier to determine before the lifter is full of oil. The plunger will only depress a given amount this is what is called the travel. When there is no pressure on the lifter the spring pushes the cup up to the top. If you push down on the cup it will bottom out, most lifter manufactures recommend setting the preload at 1/2 of the total travel. To determine 1/2 the travel, with the plunger at the top you turn the poly lock until the plunger bottoms out and you make a note of how many turns of the poly lock then divide in half and that is the correct setting. Some lifters are more sensitive to how much preload you set them at. What Cliff is suggesting is screw the poly lock down untill the plunger bottoms out then back off the poly lock 1/2 turn.

I see. That is still new information to me and I was misunderstanding what the 1/2 was. Thank you. I may try that some day. It seems more accurate than the way I typically have done it.

[Cliff R]

Bottoming out the plungers is how I adjust all hydraulic cams on engines here. Some lifters will take a couple of minutes to "bleed down" so don't be in a big hurry as you tighten the rockers down to push the oil out and the plungers to the bottom of the lifter bodies.

It's much easier to do this during the rebuild before the lifters pump-up with oil.

If you are adjusting an engine that's already been in service you may end up waiting 120 seconds or even longer as you adjust the rocker arms down. It's not fussy, and for sure you'll know when you have them fully bottomed out as things get really tight and the valves will start to open if you go any further. The KEY to success here is to make sure you are doing the adjustments with the lifters on the base circle of the camshaft.

This method for sure will quiet things down vs adjusting down from zero lash.

In theory it shouldn't matter as lifter leak down rates should be slow and consistent for all sixteen lifters. However, poor machining tolerances have left us with parts that aren't so great these days. With plunger to lifter body tolerances all over the map endind up with a noisy valve train happens is pretty common. In most cases it's more annoying than anything else and really not hurting anything.

Even so allowing less room for plunger travel also allows less leak down distance and in most cases will quiet thing up some.......

[michaelfind]

Very helpful. Thank you.

[Schurkey]

When adjusting the lifter preload "up" from collapsed, instead of "down" from zero lash, be sure your pushrods are long enough.

I've seen lifters that had more than a quarter-inch of plunger travel. A longer pushrod is appropriate when the plunger is pushed that far down.

Shelf-stock pushrods are available in .050 increments. Ideally, you're never more than .025 away from "perfect".

[Half-Inch Stud]

...and i thought somebody was gonna suggest Buying 2- Lifter sets and swap out the noise makers.

Present combo does not clickety at all, but a few did after break-in, and for quite a few months with driving once-week (30 mile up/back commute) or a little more.

Spare engine had New white-box cam &Lifters from (Summit or Jegs). Swapped wire lock for C-Clips, as is me custom, However none of the Lifters would pump-up in my jig. Some bubbles happened but no full-fill. All 16 lifters were nearly complete squishys, as if not pumped at all, yet set into the ShortBlock with Rev-Lube. so I told the Buyer that, he just shrugged. So i never came across a lifter-set that would not pump-up on the Bench.

[RocktimusPryme]

Mine has been noisy with Comp roller lifters since the day I brought it home. I didnt notice on the engine dyno over the open headers. As soon as a full exhaust system was on though you can hear them.

There were times I thought there had to be something wrong, especially because I found a little fuzz on the magnetic drain plugs for a few oil changes, but the engine is like 7 years old now with no signs of slowing down. Ive just kinda learned to live with it.

I was told that if you have them set at a half turn, and you go to 3/4 they might quiet a little.

Mine has a factory valley pan thats been dinged for clearance. Ive often wondered if maybe a spot or two wasnt quite clearanced enough and thats the sound.

[PunchT37]

Originally Posted by RocktimusPryme

I was told that if you have them set at a half turn, and you go to 3/4 they might quiet a little.

Mine has a factory valley pan thats been dinged for clearance. Ive often wondered if maybe a spot or two wasnt quite clearanced enough and thats the sound.

If you have aluminum heads, I would go 3/4 turn.