I have not built and broken in an engine in the last 3 years…but folks were singing this song pre Covid. I didn’t really think about it much. Put a set of comp lifters in that 23-ish year old truck I had, flat tappet vortech engine. Had no problems. I considered rollers for the 283 in my roadster but in contrast to what was mentioned above regarding $1000 being cheap insurance…I’m going to have about $1500 in my long block all in and am sticking to the GM performance lifters on my Howard’s cam and we’ll see what happens. When I build the blower motor, I’ll probably go full roller (factory roller…and 4 bolt mains)…but that’s not the engine I'm building right now. Small blocks are still plentiful and cheap so if something goes south on this one I’m out the cam…but could be a lot worse.
Naaaaaaaaaaa........don't work dat way ! IF............you're looking at a roller block anyway........that might be the way to go just for the piece of mind ! 6sally6
Roller lobe profiles are different than flat tappet. So I would say most likely not able to regrind flat into roller. Plus I believe there is different material for flat vs roller cam blanks: flat are cast iron, roller are steel.
If it is an early SBC that you are swapping all the guts from.... You will also need a 2-piece rear main seal adaptor [approx $120] https://www.jegs.com/i/JEGS/555/502501/10002/-1 Better still , use the late crank and flywheel for the one-piece rear main seal. These are awesome and if the spring a leak you can install a new one without dropping the pants on the engine.
It all depends on the type of core used. billet or oem type roller. also some billet cams have a distributor drive gear welded on to preclude the use of a bronze gear.
Can you talk Chet into becoming a HAMB Alliance Vendor? Or tell us a reliable source of where to buy their "race hydraulic flat tappet lifters"? I'd like to read more about this deal? Do you know any names of the people involved, when this happened, etc. I assume this info came from Chet?
Try Gateman retrofit roller lifters. He is a small operation in Florida and is a survivor of Crane Cams collapse. A few friends are running them and very pleased with them. I am planning on using them on a 377 build I am about to start.
Here is a link to an article about the theft. https://www.mlive.com/business/west-michigan/2010/07/picking_up_the_pieces_muskegon.html Also a link to High Lift Johnson lifters. Search around, lots of lifter tech and PDF catalog of their lifters. http://toplineauto.com/ From what I see, the other Johnson Lifter company only lists roller lifters on their website. Don't know if they are even producing flat tappets anymore???????????????? I will send Chet an e-mail Haven't talked to him in quite a while. Usually we will see him annually to service his Lincoln. Did not see him last fall. He lives in Chicago 1/2 year and the other 1/2 in Florida, maybe he moved to Fla permanently??? Bill
There is a lot of very good information here. I have never lost a FT cam and have done at least 40 to 50 of them. I have even swapped a couple from engine to engine, but kept the lifters where they belong. For my upcoming (any day now...) BBC build, it will be a roller cam, likely a Howards. I have a spread sheet with parts and potential combinations.
Thanks for the links! Four years wasn't enough for the loss that rat-bastard Hicks caused to the company and those employees. If any HAMB folks live near this guy make sure you call him a useless P.O.S. every time you see him.
I'm a fan of roller cams. If you use one, be sure you get the correct distributor drive gear type to go with the cam. That said.......Why not get whatever cam you are interested in using and install it in your engine before you do any of the changes you mentioned? Put some lighter weight springs in place and run the cam for break in. Then do all the parts changing you planned. If the cam messes up, well you were already planning to disassemble a lot of the engine anyway. Do it before you install most of the new parts. Then if there is a problem, just take it the rest of the way down. Flush the block and add new bearings.....Thats a lot better than having just completely assembled a fresh engine and having it mess up. I wonder if a lot of guys might want to think about breaking in their new cam before disassembling an engine for a rebuild.......if the old engine still runs.
Many, more modern roller cams can use a standard melonized dist gear. Definitely check with cam maker. Older billet steel roller cams had to run a bronze dist gear. It has been in my experience that the bronze gear has a short lifespan. Comp Cams has a polymer dist gear, that's been in my 506 BBC, 650HP for more than 10,000 miles and shows no signs of wear. The only thing I did was switch from 20/50 oil to 10/30, to take some load off the gear. I have also used them in customer cars also without issues Bill
I emailed Johnson Lifters just now. With the recommendation of their retrofit hydraulic rollers, being USA made and having a good reputation, I'll probably use them and a COMP Cams grind retrofit cam, and will ask what dis. gear I need, as well as a cam button or any other parts needed for the conversion. Another factor in all this is that engine is in my 38 Chevy coupe. Getting the engine out is quite a chore. If this were a T-Bucket or 32 Ford where whipping off the grille takes 20 minutes I might gamble on a flat tappet. I really don't want to take the front clip off again. I know it's possible to raise the engine up and out of the middle but I don't feel comfortable doing that with my harbor freight cherry picker and ceiling limitations. For the information of future readers, looks like Johnson Hydraulic Roller lifters as of this posting will be around $800 for a SBC.
I have almost 10,000 miles on my Howards roller cam and lifters now and no issues. I must be out of touch and not heard of failures.
How about getting the used lifters refaced? The hardening would have to be thick enough to accommodate it, and each lifter probably should be taken apart and cleaned. Years ago I had a mechanical cam and its lifters reground at Shadbolt Cams in Vancouver, Canada. It was an accepted practice then, but I never asked about hydraulic lifters.
HOLY SMOKE BATMAN !!!!!!!.... Just for the lifters?!! Guess I been outta 'the loop' too long !! 6sally6
Yeah no shit lol. I always thought roller meant it was high performance, high rpm, exotic, badass stuff. Now it's an expensive way to avoid Chinese lifters with soft spots lol. Oh shit! What if that metal found its way into the rollers???
Man I hear ya. Maybe I'm being overly cautious. But, I have a full time job and 5 kids, it makes more sense to play it safe on the front end so hopefully I won't have to re-do it. I'm also setting this car up for future generations, as it's a family heirloom. Dad passed it to me and I'm passing it to the kids. But even then there's risk. If I didn't like a little risk I should just collect rocks.
Here's the text of the article referred to in post #43: Muskegon auto-parts maker Topline Hy-Lift struggles to recover from a manager's betrayal and $1 million-plus theft Updated: Jul. 09, 2010, 11:00 a.m.| Published: Jul. 09, 2010, 10:00 a.m. By John S. Hausman | jhausman@mlive.com Chronicle/Cory Morse This custom spherical grinding machine, belonging to Topline Hy-Lift, was discovered in a Canton, Mich., warehouse operated by vice president and general manager Charles Allen Hicks. Hicks, 53, now a Tennessee resident, was sentenced this week to four years in federal prison. after pleading guilty earlier to one count of wire fraud, a felony, in connection with the illegal sale of Hy-Lift parts to a Memphis customer. "Forty people out of work. A dozen homes repossessed. Lost wages, health insurance, pensions, Social Security." — Topline President Chet Staron MUSKEGON -- Six years ago, the future looked bright for Muskegon auto-parts manufacturer Topline Hy-Lift. A Chicago company, Topline Automotive Engineering of Chicago, had bought the old Hy-Lift Division out of bankruptcy. The sprawling factory at 1185 E. Keating reopened in April 2004 after two years closed, ready to resume manufacture of hydraulic valve lifters, a component in vehicle engines. The plant’s longtime manager, Charles Allen Hicks, was vice president and general manager of the revived Muskegon operation, as well as a minority partner in Topline. In a Chronicle interview in 2004, Hicks predicted Hy-Lift would hire 100 employees within a year and grow from there. Today, the plant employs just 19 people, down from a post-buyout peak of 60, current managers say. The company is struggling. And company officials blame the decline on Hicks, for stealing and selling more than $1 million of the company's parts and equipment in 2006 and 2007 to benefit a competing company Hicks and others were setting up. Some of the manufacturing equipment has never been recovered. Topline managers allege Hicks also sold defective parts under the Hy-Lift brand, causing long-term damage to the company's reputation with customers. Charles Allen Hicks pleaded guilty to wire fraud and was sentenced this week to four years in federal prison. He also was ordered to pay $1,390,842 in restitution. Hicks, 53, now a Tennessee resident, was sentenced this week to four years in federal prison. He pleaded guilty earlier to one count of wire fraud, a felony, in connection with the illegal sale of Hy-Lift parts to a Memphis customer. U.S. District Judge Janet Neff also ordered Hicks to spend two years after prison on supervised release, the federal equivalent of parole, and to pay restitution of $1,390,842. Topline officials allege several others were involved in the scheme as well, something Hicks also said at his sentencing Wednesday. So far no one else has been charged, and both U.S. Attorney Donald Davis and Assistant U.S. Attorney Heath Lynch, who prosecuted Hicks, declined to comment on the prospects. The scheme was complicated, its human impact traumatic. “This case involves a tangled web,” Neff said before pronouncing sentence. “The seriousness is reflected in the amount of loss.” “I’ve hurt a lot of people,” Hicks said to the judge before sentencing, but he maintained he was not the only guilty one. “I did what I thought at the time was best for multiple people, including myself.” After the sentencing, Topline President Chet Staron, majority owner of the company, spoke to The Chronicle of the continuing impact: “Forty people out of work. A dozen homes repossessed. A couple dozen cars lost. Lost wages, health insurance, pensions, Social Security.” He said Hicks, in effect, stole from and betrayed not only Staron but the company’s Muskegon employees. Staron said he had been hoping Hicks would get the maximum possible sentence — 20 years in federal prison. As it was, the judge came in slightly below the sentencing guidelines, which called for a prison term of between four years, nine months and six years, 11 months. Hicks’ attorney, Henry M. Scharg of Northville, had asked for no prison time at all. In brief, the U.S. Attorney’s office said the scheme involved Hicks selling some of Hy-Lift’s materials to customers and moving some to a facility in Canton, Mich., where Hicks and others were setting up their own auto-parts manufacturing firm. Hicks sold the parts at below-market prices, in many cases lower than Hy-Lift’s cost to make them, and used his position as a Hy-Lift manager to divert existing and prospective Hy-Lift customers to the Canton business, the government said. The effect on Hy-Lift has been severe, said Dave Popp, the man who succeeded Hicks as plant manager after Hicks was fired in August 2007. “We would like to expand, but it’s been an uphill battle,” Popp said in an interview earlier this year. Popp described how he began to unravel the scheme after coming to Muskegon to take over Hy-Lift. He said Toplift hired him “to hopefully get this company profitable. They had problems getting a profit out of this company and didn’t understand why. They just thought (Hicks) couldn’t manage the company correctly.” Popp said he initially was hired to move operations to Florida, site of the firm’s other plant, but persuaded the owners to give the Muskegon operation a chance “because this place had potential.” Going over paperwork, Popp noticed lots of orders from a new company he had never heard of, North American Innovations, based in Canton. He also learned of another mystery: Disgruntled employees were complaining that Hicks had shipped newly rebuilt manufacturing equipment out of Muskegon, supposedly to Florida at the direction of the owners — but no equipment was showing up in Florida. Intrigued about the unknown Canton company, one weekend Popp drove to the listed address. He said it turned out to be a warehouse. Popp said he looked through a small window, and there was “our furniture. It still had Hy-Lift name tags on it. Unfinished Harley-Davidson valve lifters inside Topline Hy-Lift Johnson in Muskegon. The company manufactures auto parts. David Popp, the company's current general manager, discovered that the former general manager of the company, Charles Hicks, allegedly stole and sold more than $1 million of the company's parts and equipment. “Then I realized we had found out where the missing equipment was,” Popp said. He called police. Initially Muskegon police investigated, getting a search warrant for the Canton warehouse. “They ended up recovering four tractor-trailer loads of equipment and parts,” Popp said. Eventually the case was turned over to the FBI, which led to the federal charge early this year. Hicks’s sentencing doesn’t end the story for Topline Hy-Lift. “It’s been frustrating,” Popp said. “It was a huge battle for a couple of years to get customers back. ... We’re still fighting to get the confidence back from the customers. It’s just one of those trickle-down effects.” E-mail John Hausman: jhausman@muskegonchronicle.com
According to the federal inmate search, he was released in 2014 Name: CHARLES ALLEN HICKS Register Number: 14698-040 Age: 67 Race: White Sex: Male Released On: 03/04/2014
Hydraulic roller cams are pretty much standard now, flat tappets are old technology and no one is investing in old technology anymore. The market has shrunk too much to justify it, which is the story on much of the stuff we mess with. If you're working with one of the less popular motors, your options can be even more limited. I'm getting ready to build a big-inch FE and as near as I can tell all hydraulic roller lifters for these are made by Morel with the possible exception of Crowers. The Howards and Comp lifters are re-branded Morels, Isky apparently doesn't offer them. It's also interesting to note that some cam suppliers are offering austempered iron cores rather than billet steel, eliminating the need for steel or bronze distributor gears. Anybody have any feedback on these?
The Jalopy Journal
