[Cliff R]

"He told me that he could make an aggressive lobe easier on the valve train better than anyone else, I don't remember everything he told me but one thing I remember he said was he could make the lifter slow down and close the valve gently at just the right point without sacrificing duration and was a pioneer in asymmetrical designs."

He designed his camshafts to have no quicker seating velocity that stock cams for a reason. One is that they don't require nearly as much spring pressure to control the valve action at high RPM's. The term often used with this problem is "lifter crash" and it is real and will happen when you use lobe profiles that have super-quick seating velocities and not enough spring to control it, and/or you use heavy components in the valve train. I've witnesses this first hand here, and have had other engine builders observe it when using some of these "modern" fast-ramp cams in their engines.

Also, as it relates to this hobby we NEVER had any issues at all till the early 2000's. Didn't matter if we were swapping out a cam in one of our 4 x 4 trucks in a barn with a dirt floor working off a dirty/dusty work bench, or in a gravel driveway working off a picnic table. ZERO problems. We didn't even know much about "break-in", using "special" oils, lighter "break-in" springs, nothing done at all put put the cams in and go drive the vehicle like you stole it.

Then out of knowhere we started seeing LOTS of lifter/lobe failures followed by just about everyone on the Forums coming in with some theory why it was happening.

I'm in the camp that the demise of Hylift Johnson and the rise of offshore companies filling the gaps started filling the shelves with junk lifters that either didn't spin or so "soft" then ground into dust in about as long as it took me to type this.

By the time Hylift Johnson recovered from their scandal/bankruptsy in 2003 the market was flooded with crappy lifters and those companies that make them are still in the game today supplying sub-par lifters that don't spin like they should and even if they do they aren't made of good materials so the entire deal is doomed anyhow........FWIW.....