[gtofreek]

Originally Posted by Tim Corcoran

Paul, I didn't know that Hy-Lift Johnson started making hyd rollers for Pontiac. When I still had Tomahawk Performance I was a Hy-lift Johnson dealer and had asked them a couple of times if they would offer them for Pontiac and they said they would at some point. They make a great hyd flat tappet lifter for Pontiac, too bad they are using Chevy bodies for their hyd rollers and messing up a lot of people to think they would work correctly in a Pontiac.

I thought maybe you were confusing Hy-Lift Johnson with Johnson Lifter, as they make hyd rollers for Pontiac. Have you tried the Johnson Lifter hyd rollers for Pontiac?

No Tim, I have not used Johnson lifters. We have been talking to Dave @ Hylift-Johnson and he said these hydraulic rollers are something new they are trying. If we can ever get him on the phone again, we will pass on what we have found out, and see what happens. I think most of these companies have the thinking that as long as the oil band doesn't come out of the lifter bore, they will work OK. But, these lifters probably only work OK on engines with excessive lifter to lifter bore clearance, which may give them just enough volume to barely refill the lifter while it's on the base circle. The engine in this thread only has around .0015" clearance, so when the engine is just at cranking over speeds, it allows the lifter enough time to refill, but once the engine is running, the lifter spends too little time on the base circle to refill, so it slowly bleeds the oil out of it, until after about a minute, it is empty, and noisy as can be. I don't think the manufacturers are thinking about it like this.

[tom s]

Have driven the car the last 3 days.Still quiet,no issues.I have found the engine will lug under 1800 now in 4th or 5th gear.With the solids its was good at 1500.Just to make me sleep better im going to look into new springs monday.The thought of ingesting a valve because of a broken single spring with these 980 heads has me not driving it as much or as long as I would like.Never have time to do it right but always have time to do it over!Tom

[gtofreek]

Here is the block modification we did to a 455 that is running a HR cam. We lowered the oil hole by grooving the block about 1/4" down. This allows full oil into the oil band of the lifter. After getting it running, it is quiet as can be.



Here is a video of it idling with a 243/251 Voodoo cam ground on a 110° LSA. It has a gear drive[which I do not like], which you can easily hear. This cam is installed at 103° ICL, and it runs like a scalded dog! Customer says it feels much faster than it did before with his 248/254 HR cam that came out due to a lifter spitting out an axle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfLlYku-MtI

[455TA]

I have the old style 857 lifters in my 455 using an xr288hr. Bought it in early 2014. Its been noisy since the very beginning. Will Comp Cams replace the lifters with the new style if I call them with the complaint? It's obvious that they know it was an issue because they completely redesigned them.

[tom s]

All they can say is no.Who did you buy them from?Maybe they can help.I now have the dual springs on mine with a little over 160 on the seats.No noise with either the single or the dual springs.Cant be happier.Tom

[455TA]

I have dual springs. I have Edelbrock heads setup for a roller. I am going to give them a call to see if they will replace them. Worse they can say is no. I bought it from another shop thats right down the road from Comp.

[rohrt]

Originally Posted by 455TA

I have the old style 857 lifters in my 455 using an xr288hr. Bought it in early 2014. Its been noisy since the very beginning. Will Comp Cams replace the lifters with the new style if I call them with the complaint? It's obvious that they know it was an issue because they completely redesigned them.

Pretty sure I'm in the same boat. Old style 857s through SD performance. Mine act the opposite of what this thread has described. If my car sits too long I will have some nasty tickers. It takes a long warm up time for them to quiet down.

Some encouraging news here at least.

[hurryinhoosier62]

Paul, thanks for doing the research to help solve this problem.

[ponjohn]

Originally Posted by gtofreek

Here is the block modification we did to a 455 that is running a HR cam. We lowered the oil hole by grooving the block about 1/4" down. This allows full oil into the oil band of the lifter. After getting it running, it is quiet as can be.



Here is a video of it idling with a 243/251 Voodoo cam ground on a 110° LSA. It has a gear drive[which I do not like], which you can easily hear. This cam is installed at 103° ICL, and it runs like a scalded dog! Customer says it feels much faster than it did before with his 248/254 HR cam that came out due to a lifter spitting out an axle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfLlYku-MtI

Did you groove it then weld up the old hole?

[ta man]

When I added a vacuum pump to my engine I swapped my pushrods for a set of restricted pushrods to keep the pump from sucking oil...the one side effect of this was a quieter valve train...I used to have the odd ticker on start up...Anybody else ever notice this?

[gtofreek]

Originally Posted by ponjohn

Did you groove it then weld up the old hole?

No. The old hole is still there. The pic is how it looks when it was reassembled. Just grooved the hole downward.

[rohrt]

Originally Posted by gtofreek

No. The old hole is still there. The pic is how it looks when it was reassembled. Just grooved the hole downward.

So did you make a fixture for that? I seen the drawing in one of the earlier post.

Any chance you're going to market them?

[gtofreek]

No, we did this one by hand. We want to make a jig though. I'll post if/when we do.

[ponjohn]

Originally Posted by gtofreek

No. The old hole is still there. The pic is how it looks when it was reassembled. Just grooved the hole downward.

OHHHH, I see it now. I thought the groove was the old hole....got it.

[ponjohn]

Do these have any value in solving this issue?

http://www.jegs.com/p/COMP-Cams/Comp...42426/10002/-1

[tom s]

the newer Comp 857s are NO issue.Use the correct lifter and there is no problem.Tom

[gtofreek]

No. The real problem, I've determined, is the fact that with todays higher lobe lift roller cams, the lifter companies cannot put the oil band high enough to reach the oil hole while on the base circle, otherwise the oil band will stick out the top of the lifter bore at full lift. That wasn't a problem with factory Pontiac cams as they had very little lobe lift by comparison.

My theory on why some are quiet, and some are noisy is this:
I think the quiet ones have more than .002" lifter to lifter bore clearance. The noisy ones I feel are under .002". I say this because in this particular engine that I wrote this thread about, has .0017"-.0018" lifter bore clearance. When I primed this engine with the valley pan off, it just had a very thin, light film of oil coming out the bottom of the lifter[with 10-40 Brad Penn oil]. When I primed an engine that had .0025" clearance, it had a thick, heavy film of oil gushing down out of the lifter bore, completely engulfing the roller lifter and cam lobe in oil[with 20-50 Brad Penn]. This tells me that with tighter clearances, there may not be enough oil volume, when the lifter is on the base circle, to properly refill the lifter in the short period of time the lifter sits there. With more clearance, the oil volume may be just enough to refill the lifter, resulting in quiet operation. On this particular engine, with tight clearance, the lifters refill fine while the engine is just cranking over on the starter, but once it starts running, it slowly bleeds the lifter down, until it's noisy, and it can't refill in time to start opening again.

[tom s]

Paul,I have built 2 engines with 400 lobe lift comp cams with no issues with the newer lifters ?The set I just put in my tempest were to my thought a touch too tight but went with them anyway because I was tired of working on it.Has a 60 lb pump and 10-30 moble 1,hot never under 35 lb at idle.FWIW,Tom

[rohrt]

Is it not as simple as putting a small ruler down the lifter bore and taking a measure from the cam base to the oil hole and comparing to the lifter?

[gtofreek]

Originally Posted by tom s

Paul,I have built 2 engines with 400 lobe lift comp cams with no issues with the newer lifters ?The set I just put in my tempest were to my thought a touch too tight but went with them anyway because I was tired of working on it.Has a 60 lb pump and 10-30 moble 1,hot never under 35 lb at idle.FWIW,Tom

Which confirms the oil band is low like everyone else's. If the oil band was high enough to reach the oil hole, the oil band would come out of the lifter bore at .400" lobe lift. I bet your engines have more than .002" lifter bore clearance.