thanks for the input, you guyses. C9, I'll keep my eyes peeled. Humboldt, it's a little tricky, but here's how you do it: turn the engine over to 45 degrees past TDC- this will sets the cam up so that none of the valves are all the way open- and thus puts less stress on the rocker shaft. drop your pushrods in place- you'll feel 'em kinda snick into position on top of each lifter, sort of a secure, 'this feels right' feeling. you'll know what I'm talking about when it's right. so, you've got your pushrods poking up, all set to jet. then take your rocker shaft with all the rockers swung back, place it gently on the studs, while you place each pushrod in the cup on the rocker. once everything's in position, and you'll have to fiddle a bit to get it all lined up, screw the 4 rocker shaft stud nuts one or two threads in. once you're satisfied everything's in place, pushrods in the cups, then starting from the front of the shaft turn each nut one turn, then the next, etc, and just EASE the nuts down a little at a time, like you would when installing clutch bolts. there's a lot of force in those valve springs; easy does it so that the shaft doesn't bend. as you tighten the shaft you'll see some of the valves open. cinch the nuts down, then do the other side. slow and easy. then torque 'em down to 35 footpounds. that's it!
[ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] ive never baught anything from PAW and i never will... id rather pay extra for premium mechanical parts [/ QUOTE ] PAW sells premium parts as well as house brands. All you gotta do is ask the guy on the phone what brand the parts will be. F.A. - I'll try to find the lifter info for you this afternoon, provided I can find them.... [/ QUOTE ] you have a good point C9, a little research on the consumers end always helps
[ QUOTE ] C9, I'll keep my eyes peeled. [/ QUOTE ] Not sure how much help it will be, but here tis. Both the Crower and the PAW SS lifters for my 455 Buick engine have 6 small depressions around the top side of the lifter cup. Some of the depressions seen through a magnifying glass look like a mirror image of a very small screw head, others are a smooth and half round dimple. The dimple looking like it was cut with a ball end mill cutter. Doesn't seem to be a particular pattern to the screw head or smooth dimple bit, probably just the way the casting turned out since the dimples are quite small. Other things that lead me to believe both lifter brands are the same - everything mics identical. Granted, diameters etc. are gonna be the same, but it's possible the distance from lifter face to inset* of casting could be different - they're the same - as well as the chamfer up top where the cup is inserted is the same. *Inset of casting being the middle part where the lifter does not contact the lifter bore. It's left in an 'as-cast' state. The height of the inset is the same in both lifters as well. In some cases - my experience stemming from a 400-M Ford engine, you can run a cam with the non-adjustable rocker setup. Just need to see if you have the right amount of clearance at each and every lifter. I ran a Crower Compu-Pro #2 very successfully. Crower cam, lifters and springs. Big trick with this is not running too big a cam although the C-P #2 was a touch lumpy. I'd like to touch on the old wives tales about mixing old and new lifters as well as simply mixing lifters up. Keep in mind that this worked for me and may not for you, but if I was bucks down and in a mood to take a small chance I'd do it again. I've run - successfully - new lifters on an old cam in a couple of SBC's. I inadvertently mixed up the lifters to a GT 390 when I had to move before an engine rebuild was finished. Installed them on the original GT cam and the car ran fine for 7 years. The only problem being when my house was flooded, the station wagon the 390 was in was flooded as well. Some HAMB'rs who I respect have reported problems with mixing old and new lifters/cams, but the few instances I tried it, it worked fine. Pays your money and takes your choice....
flying clutchman -- Interesting comment about PAW's scam. I'm puzzled that they would do such a thing, however. With the hundreds of thousands of sound and affordable smallblock and big-block GM, Ford, and ChryCo castings in the rebuilder system at any given time, just in SoCal alone, saving scrap blocks by pinning cracks is not cost-effective.
If you think collapsing is bad, read this. mine were dissappearing (being ground away) This guy we got the car from put Brodix heads on and was running a solid lifter cam, but left the roller valve springs on. So I got to rebuild it. 4 lifters had half inch missing and the lumps on the cam were gone!?!? It's a party! Fullblast
So, if there are only about 3 companies in the U.S. making lifters, who does Napa get their lifters from?
[ QUOTE ] This thread brings up an interesting question. I was told recently that there are only a few aftermarket lifter manufacturers in existence. Others just package them with their name on the box. Anyone know the TRUTH to this question? [/ QUOTE ] Yup, its true. There is/was a lifter shortage and there are only two large lifter companies left in the US as of late 2002. One company, Johnson Tappet, went belly up in 2001 and left a gaping hole in the lifter supply chain.....but the gap in the supply chain seems to be getting better as I've noticed that the prices of lifters has stablized in the later part of 2003 and we havn't had to wait for any on the last few motors we did. I answered this same question a while back in the USENET group alt.hi-po.big-block-ford-mercury. Its a great site for big block Ford nuts. Almost as much attitude as you get here on HAMB. The dude with the the handle CobraJet is the loose moderator and he'll beat you with a rusty camshaft if things get out of hand...... Here's a cut and past of my "lifter" post last year. ******************************************************* Brace yourselves folks, rebuilding our motors just got more expensive. Good roller tappets were never cheap but we just picked up a set of hydraulic roller tappets for a customers 548 inch O.B.T. motor with a price tag that rivaled that of a set of decent forged pistons! Apparently when the Johnson/Hy-lift Tappet Company went belly-up they left the aftermarket hanging high...especially for hydraulic tappets. There are two other major lifter manufacturers but they supply the OEM manufacturers and either don't want to bother with the aftermarket and/or don't have the capacity to bring on more production. This means a large shift in supply and demand and THAT means higher prices. We all need to watch for garbage off-shore tappets that can fail due to incorrect grinding/machining, incorrect heat treating, or poor materials. Word has it that distribution houses are getting creative with lifter suppliers and some of the stuff isn't passing muster. Here's a snippet lifted from the MartelBros Racing web site: --- "The recent closing of the Johnson/Hy-Lift plant has jeopardized the entire Automotive Industry with regard to availability of hydraulic and mechanical lifters. Johnson/Hy-Lift's demise and the resultant lifter shortage have also had a serious effect on cam and lifter kit assemblies at most of the cam manufacturers. Each manufacturer who has responded to our inquiries is dealing with the crisis in the best way they can, but all agree on two things: lifter prices will rise dramatically, and the shortages will exist easily into the third quarter of 2002. Availability and pricing of Lifters and Cam & Lifter Packages will change daily and may not reflect current availability or cost. You will be notified prior to billing/shipping if there has been a price increase on any Lifter or Cam & Lifter Package that is ordered." --- Anybody else got information they'd like to share? -Bigchief
Well in PAWs defence the 39 dollar cam I bought has had no problems. But the Comp Lifters and Valve springs I bought I used to colapse lifters and break valve springs all the time. The 3000 dollar engine I had pro built for my car had noting but problems but the 300 dollar engine I have now runs like a bat outta hell. So I've seemed to come across high dollar and low dollar parts that were crap. Buying parts is just a roll of the dice.
dang! I'm in good company. Worldwide Lifter Failure. C9, thanks for the information. I'll be examining these PAW's to see if they share any of the characteristics you describe. I'm going to try to find NOS lifters given the sour news....too bad it's a huge chore to modify FE's originally equipped with hydraulic lifters to accept solids. thanks again for all the anecdotes.
[ QUOTE ] dang! I'm in good company. Worldwide Lifter Failure. C9, thanks for the information. I'll be examining these PAW's to see if they share any of the characteristics you describe. I'm going to try to find NOS lifters given the sour news....too bad it's a huge chore to modify FE's originally equipped with hydraulic lifters to accept solids. thanks again for all the anecdotes. [/ QUOTE ] Try verifying that you've got correct valvetrain geometry and proper preload before you write off hydraulic cams in your FE. Try a new cam and lifters and do a little homework on the valvetrain before you put it all together....I think you'll be pleasantly suprised. First question is, do you have a cam in your FE with over .500" lift? If you do then you MUST run adjustable rocker arms and appropriately sized push rods. The douchebags behind most of the tech phones at the cam companies understand SBC's but when it comes to FE's they're clueless. They don't realize that the FE need's adjustables and will tell you your fine up to about .530" lift. Your not. If you look at every original FE built by Ford you'll notice that as soon as the cam lift exceeded .500" lift at the valve they switched to an adjustable rocker. I've got a '69 Mach with a 428SCJ running a Crower 297HDP (236i/242edur+.591"/.588"lift) hydraulic flat tappet cam. Yea, its a little lumpy. There's over 10,000 miles of drag racing, street racing and road course/open track as-well-as plenty of cruising and even two vacations worth of driving on the motor with no problems. FE's are **very** sensitive to lifter preload. You need to verify that you've got .015-.020" preload on the lifter plunger....and you'll need to check this on all 16 lifters. The only way to check this is to pull the intake and reinstall the valvetrain and use a wire type feeler gauge between the lifter plunger and its snap ring. The other way to know what your preload is correct is to swap over to the adjustable rockers and push rods, install all the parts and adjust the rockers till you just sneak up on zero lash then give them an additional 1/4 turn. That'll give you just under .020" lifter preload AND proper geometry without any major work. Also....may darn sure your valve springs are correct for the cam and that you don't have any coil bind. One of the best all around valve springs for the FE is the Isky 8005A. You'll need to machine the spring pockets and guides for clearance but well worth the effort/costs. Here are the Crane part numbers you'll need for the '66 427 adjustable valvetrain parts: Most companies offer comparable parts, even NAPA. Rockers: 34722-16 ($199.00 set) Push Rods: 34645-16 ($89.00 set) The rockers will work with your OEM shafts, stands and spacers as long as the rocker shafts aren't galled up. No need for oversized shafts and bushed rockers this side of a Superstocker running a roller cam. Stock replacement shafts (good enough for most HP cams) are available for less than 25 dollars a side). These particular push rods are made for use with the hydraulic lifter/adjustable rocker combination. Want more FE information? Here's a couple of good sites. FE Ford Big Block Forum - http://www.network54.com/Forum/21142 FE.com Forum - http://www.network54.com/Hide/Forum/74182 PM me if you have any more questions. -Bigchief.
Can't trust anyone completely--a few years ago I replaced a dead Chevy 6 (same as small block) lifter with a new TRW one. A very few miles later, engine started blowing blue smoke... Teardown revealed one rocker arm totally dry--with the pushrod stuck right through the end of the rocker! It was the one on the new lifter, and a quick autopsy revealed that the oil feed hole at the top center of the lifter that feeds the valve train was closed. It was a punched hole, not drilled, and the puchout piece was still in the bottom of the hole, far enough down that the hole looked normal. I guess there are limits to what you can check on a non race engine, but...
Bigcheif, don't get me wrong- I lke hydraulics, a lot. I've got a lot of machines that require valve adjustment, so one that doesn't is most welcome. thanks a lot for the info regarding a solid-lifter conversion. if this car was meant to fly I'd do just what you prescribe. my comments are meant to address the apparent lack of quality in lifters made these days and in light of that good old solid lifters look tempting. whatever cam I choose will be very mild, with a lift of no more than .500- I don't see where more lift would help given the heads which are the stock C4AEs and I'll be running a Performer manifold and not a Performer RPM. so, pretty much stock.
The cams arent any better. I dont use them but I know people that have and they didnt last. Like the old saying says "You get what you pay for"
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