[gtofreek]

There has been a lot of complaints about noisy hydraulic roller lifters. We've been round and round with this ourselves with a 326 we put a roller cam in. They were Morel lifters, sold by Lunati. We called the owner of Morel after the first set was noisy, and he agreed to make us another set. We installed them, and just like the previous lifters, they were quiet for the first minute or two, then they started getting noisy again. After 2 minutes, they were noisy as can be. I have been saying right from the start that the problem is with the placement of the oil band. It is too low, and at the base circle, it drops out of the oil hole, so no oil pressure is present while on the base circle, so no oil to refill the lifters at the critical time when they need the oil. After all, the lifter can't refill while under pressure from the springs.

So the apparent fix is to elongate the oil hole in the block to extend it down another 1/4" so it is open to the lifters oil band while on the base circle. Obviously this is not an option for the assembled engines with this problem. So what we did was cut a groove in the lifter body to extend it up about .150" so it can see the oil hole while on the base circle. Here is a pic of the modification. I will post when I get the affirmation that it fixed the problem for sure.

We have had two lifter manufacturers tell us that they use Chevy lifter bodies for the Pontiac lifters because they don't want to tool up to make a specific lifter for a "limited market", according to them. Well, maybe, just maybe, if they made the parts right in the first place, more people would buy them. But with the current complaints of noisy lifters, people are gun shy of using them. They tell us 90% of all noisy lifter complaints they get are from Pontiac owners. WELL, MAYBE THAT'S BECAUSE THEY DON'T MAKE THEM RIGHT! Did they ever think of that?