[whittp]

Car is in the shop for an engine rebuild and transmission swap. Thought the issue was a worn thrust bearing (which it was) but then they found this! Opinions?

[steve25]

Well your not rebuilding those two roller lifters if that’s what your eluding to?

What you want to do now is confirm that those two lifter bores are still usable by placing a good lifter in them and comparing the clearance and how they feel when traveling up & down those two bores.

[whittp]

The engine was built about 7 years ago and the shop owner has retired. The documentation for the build is at the new shop. Buying a new set of pushrods isn't a big deal for piece of mind and reliability. What are the performance trade offs? Is there a cam that will perform similar to what's in it now?

[Formulajones]

Originally Posted by whittp

The engine was built about 7 years ago and the shop owner has retired. The documentation for the build is at the new shop. Buying a new set of pushrods isn't a big deal for piece of mind and reliability. What are the performance trade offs? Is there a cam that will perform similar to what's in it now?

Without knowing what you have now there isn't a good answer. Generally though with the rollers carrying more lift under the curve, and having a good set of aluminum heads on the engine, it's going to be difficult to get the same performance from a flat tappet cam unless you get pretty wild on cam timing with the flat tappet, and then the whole question of drivability comes into play.
Yes you'll have to swap pushrods, and you'll need a different set of valve springs if you go flat tappet.

Personally, I'd stab a roller back in it, same thing you had since you were so happy with the performance of the engine, and either go with the Comp 857-S lifters or a set of Johnsons.

Sticking with the same cam profile keeps things simple for you. It's already been tuned and running for 7 years, you were happy with how it ran and performed, and you won't have to swap pushrods or valve springs.

[dataway]

Those roller cams are nothing but trouble

(The HFT Clan)

[4zpeed]

Originally Posted by dataway

Those roller cams are nothing but trouble

(The HFT Clan)

Hey! I'm in a clan...



Frank

[whittp]

I should clarify that it has not been running for the past 5 years. The engine only had about 400 miles on it when it failed.

[Formulas]

I've seen the consensus on this site go from everyone had to have a 462 with 041 cam and rhoads lifters to everyone has to have old faithful roller camshaft to OMG where is the good roller lifters mine tick or are falling apart

Glad I dont follow herds

Your extremely lucky your block is not busted lifter bore broken out

Remove and replace

[4zpeed]

Originally Posted by Formulas

I've seen the consensus on this site go from everyone had to have a 462 with 041 cam and rhoads lifters to everyone has to have old faithful roller camshaft to OMG where is the good roller lifters mine tick or are falling apart

Glad I dont follow herds

Your extremely lucky your block is not busted lifter bore broken out

Remove and replace

Dude, every time I see that face, I just loose it, omg, epic !

As for your post... Word Up!, every word...

My sympathy to whittp.



Frank

[Half-Inch Stud]

Building my spare engine, and still on the fence for big HYD FT vs SMALL Roller cam.

[P@blo]

Sorry to hear of your trouble whittp. Seems another link bar roller retrofit bites the dust. I am pointing this out because there are guys posting these lifters are trouble free which they are not. Far from it actually and these lifters are expensive to boot so not sure the juice is worth the squeeze.

I would like to thank Jim Hand for banging the 041 on a 1.65:1 rocker arm drum to avoid all the problems we are now seeing. I bet the farm Pontiac engineers would have never used or approved the link-bar retro-fits for use in a production setting because of the warranty nightmare it would have caused.

Jim didn't sell you parts and knows what he is talking about.

[P@blo]

Originally Posted by Half-Inch Stud

Building my spare engine, and still on the fence for big HYD FT vs SMALL Roller cam.

Same here HIS. If you never drive it I'd go roller as it cool to say you have a roller motor even know the bearings are not.

Always wanted a BMW

[Dragncar]

Originally Posted by P@blo

Same here HIS. If you never drive it I'd go roller as it cool to say you have a roller motor even know the bearings are not.

Always wanted a BMW

Roller bearings are one of the reasons Germany lost WWII. Tanks do not need roller crank bearings, but they had them. Cost,time=lose.

OP, first thing you need to do is cut your oil filter apart and see what you have going on.

[P@blo]

Roller bearings lost the war. Nope.

[Dragncar]

Originally Posted by P@blo

Roller bearings lost the war. Nope.

That was not what I was trying to say. The Germans had a habit and still do of making things over complicated when it was not needed to get the job done.
Made equipment hard to produce, time consuming and expensive.
We won the war because we simply out produced them. Their Panzer tanks were far superior to our Shermans but we made 50,000 of them !!
They call that POS Sherman Ronson,s because they lit the first hit, every time.
Operating a Sherman in WWII was horrible duty.

[PontiacJim1959]

Originally Posted by Dragncar

Roller bearings are one of the reasons Germany lost WWII. Tanks do not need roller crank bearings, but they had them. Cost,time=lose.

OP, first thing you need to do is cut your oil filter apart and see what you have going on.

Ball bearings - we bombed their ball bearing plants and this was a part of what ended the war, shortage of ball bearings.

[MarkS57]

Originally Posted by PontiacJim1959

Ball bearings - we bombed their ball bearing plants and this was a part of what ended the war, shortage of ball bearings.

Yep, Bremen for one. We lost a lot of guys in those daylight bombing raids of that damn city.

The M4 vs the Pershing- lot of differing opinions on that one. One being why in the world did we keep trying to prop up the M4 instead of going all out on getting the Pershing into the war earlier.

Crower still making good stuff. I was able to get my set of Pontiac Sportsman rods at "close out" special in July but it took some time to get them. They are sweet looking for certain and well balanced.

[whittp]

It is a 68 400 block with an eagle rotating assembly. Cubic inches are 461 with this set up. The crank is also going to have to be replaced due to the thrust bearing and I figured I'd go with the eagle forged crank. Connecting rods and pistons are all in good shape.

This thing is a mess inside and I'd sure like to not repeat this again. Hoping the TKX will solve the issue on the crank getting pushed around (and be a lot more fun to drive). Now I'm worrying about the reliability of the top end as well. What can the shop do to ensure it'll be good the next go round? They did mention that most of the prior build was done well but a few corners were cut. Rings not exactly right, bottom end not balanced, #3 was burning a little oil and it's probably the valve seal.

[Formulajones]

Sometimes builds go that way with some shops. I've had fairly fresh builds in here that were running okay, but when I tore them down and took them to Paul for a going over, all kinds of things were found to be "subpar" even for a mild street build. It was a matter of time before things went south, and just lucky very few miles were put on.

Hate to hear it and very unfortunate for you, but maybe the shop you're at now will do a thorough job and straighten things out.

[pontbil]

Sorry for your mess. I would send that pic and lifters back to the manufacture. What do you think happen did the link bar fail and let the lifter go or did the lifter start floating and bind up the link bar causing it to break