That’s not to say the new “improved” lifters are not better; they are. But trying to convince a customer used to paying $300 for a set of lifters that they now must buy a set of $800 lifters from the same manufacturer in order to get the same or slightly improved quality they used to get from the $300 lifters can be, well, interesting.

I think am one of the few engine builders left that will refuse to install parts in an engine that I feel have no reasonable chance of surviving. It has cost me sales in the past but so be it. Because it is guaranteed that if the engine part they demand I use fails later I will get blamed anyway and I don’t need the hassle. What is the point of this rather long, drawn out rant?       

Well, when I find a company that makes a quality product that delivers what is promised and is really MADE in the USA, I want people to know about it! Is this an endorsement for ISKY Cams roller lifters? Damn right it is. But know that I got nothing from Isky to write this tech piece. I paid for every part I asked for.

This is one of the things that can happen when the needle bearings decide to vaporize. It leaves the roller wheel as a non-roller. Ouch! 

Look closely and you can see the width of the former cam lobe has eaten its way into the lifter body. 

A few weeks ago I had two customers’ engines have identical lifters-same exact part number- fail on the same weekend! They were lifters from a manufacturer I have been buying lifters from for years. One engine was a BBF truck puller’s engine that frequently sees 8700 rpm and the other a BBF drag engine that never sees more than 7500 rpm. Both engines had adequate valve spring pressure to keep the lifters from launching off the cam lobe and neither engine gave any advanced warning that something was about to go horribly wrong. The roller lifters’ needles simply disintegrated into powder, resulting in the lifter bodies ruining the racers’ expensive cams.