Time to build the 455 ive always wanted

Derek, again many thanks for posting those pictures for me. For all who are reading, the empty lifter bore is the #5 exhaust valve that contained the failed lifter. I will call TA tomorrow.

 

Spoke to Tim at TA today and explained the situation and he is sending me a new lifter to replace the faulty one. I just have to pay shipping. So once it's here, I will do another break in procedure and see if everything works as advertised and evaluate further after that.

 

I was talking with some guys at work about my motor issues and some questios came about.

Do you have to soak the lifters in oil before installing them?

Can you reuse the valley pan intake manifold gasket?

What kind of lubricant should I pour on this camshaft through the lifter galley prior to installing the intake and doing another break in procedure?

Thanks!

 

Duke, you're just breaking in one lifter right? If so spray some brake clean on the cam lobe that will be breaking in the new lifter, wipe off excess as best you can that will help the Molly cam lube stick to the cam lobe and do the same to the bottom of the lifter. With the lobe oily the cam break-in lube won't stick so good, you only need to do this for the 1 lobe that is getting a new lifter, the rest of them should be fine so treat them like a sore d-_k and don't F with them. :laugh: Don't worry about that very little bit of brake clean in the oil it won't hurt anything one bit, it will just eventually evaporate.

TA should of sent a new valley/intake gasket because the lifters they sold you one of them failed, they won't if you don't ask though I would guess.

The lifters don't need to be soaked, the oil will fill up when the engine starts, but it doesn't hurt to let them soak so they fill with oil so they don't get hammered all the way down when the engine starts. If you have any thinner oil like 5w-20 that would fill the lifter faster and more complete for initial start up. Just remember to clean the out side of the lifter so the cam break-in lube sticks to the bottom. GL




Derek

 

More valve train woes...so I installed the new lifter and lubed the hell out of the camshaft as well as the bottom of each lifter. Changed the oil to fresh oil and filter, then started and ran the car at 2500rpm for 30 minutes. It fired up quickly and everything seemed to be fine. Then as the 30 minute elapsed and I slowly lowered the idle via the idle screw on the carb, a loud ticking sound chimes up. Then as it idled a bit more at ~1000rpm, the tick went away.

So I backed the car out and went for a drive up to the next exit and back, ~7miles. Everything seemed fine. I stopped and got gas on the way home and when I started the car, the tick was back, and louder. As I nursed it home, the tick went away. About 2.5 miles from the house, as everything seemed fine, I gassed it a bit to around 3800 rpm to see if it would respond and it lights the tires up and scoots. I'm thinking, hell yeah! As I ease up and cruise in for the remainder of my route. But then, just as I'm turning in my neighborhood, the ticking sound shows up again and the car now seems to be running rough. No backfire or anything, but the engine is not smooth like before. I shut it down and removed the driver's side valve cover and took another slow motion video. Appears the #5 exhaust valve was not the issue this time. The #7 intake valve and both intake and exhaust for the #3 cylinder all have slack in the rocker assembly as it runs. You can see the rocker arm bounce on the top of the lock/retainer when the engine runs through the slow motion video. I haven't pulled the intake yet, but when I dipped my finger in some of the oil that pooled in the head, the oil was again a pewter color. I guess that means my cam is worn down huh? Seems to be the only logical explanation. Any ideas? I'm going to call TA tomorrow morning and see if they will replace the cam, lifters, and gaskets like Derek mentioned, due to the failed lifter from before. Worth a shot I guess...

 

Upgrade to a roller cam and never look back! No need to break in the cam when its a roller, just install it and go.

If the cam is toast though the engine needs to come back out, disassembled and all the metal cleaned out then re-honed, new rings and new bearings need to be swapped in. Hopefully the crank will only need to be polished, not ground again. Also hopefully the metal didn't make it to the cylinders and get impregnated into the piston skirts, if so you'll need new pistons as well.

The above is why I will always try to talk someone into going with a roller cam, by the time all of the above is fixed going with a roller to start with would of been less $$ than what needs to be done now plus all the extra work and delays because of it.

I hope your cam isn't wiped out, that would be VERY unfortunate!! Hopefully it is just more bad lifters like what happened to the Hulk.(can't bring myself to call it Rusty Hulk because Shawn did such a nice job with it) GL



Derek

 

So where should I start here? Do machine shops have warranties? Should I pimp TA for some replacement parts? Seems to me that $6700 in parts and labor combined should come with a warranty. Especially since there were some faulty parts to start with.

 

I know Competition Cams would warranty the cam and lifters if one component made the other fail, or at least they used to. Can't remember if they would include gaskets or not if that happened though?

More than likely the lifters are from the same batch as Shawn got and the pewter color in the oil is from the cam lube you used? The cam is probably ok, the lifters probably not so much?

I noticed you wrote that you put cam lube on the whole cam to break in the one lifter, that wasn't necessary only the one new lifter needed it. Definitely ask TA what's up with the lifters and why they think they're failing? Must be only able to get the flat tappet lifters from China anymore even the Delphi ones, and the quality is probably hit and miss?

If the car is going to be stored for the winter I say save up some $ for a mild roller for next year, see if TA will give you a credit for the failed one in there now? That is if the cam did fail, but either way more than likely the heat treat on the surface of the cam is probably gone or very thin by now and might not like breaking in another set of lifters? See if TA will swap the cam and lifters for new if you're going to stick with the flat tappet stuff? You don't want the metal from the cam lobes being wiped out running through your engine, its bad enough the break-in metal runs through the engine when a cam is broke in.

Its a bummer when a flat tappet cam doesn't go the way it is suppose to, probably 1 out of 10 or so seem to fail and you probably just did yours at the wrong time? o No: I'm sorry this is happening to you and hope you get everything sorted out soon.

I would have to now agree with Gary Farmer and go with the stock replacement flat tappet cams that don't need all the spring pressure to run right if I had to go with a flat tappet?(although I did let an engine sit for a year so I could save up for a roller cam before, :eek2 GL


Derek

 

I cut the filter open and saw no shards of metal in it other than the fragments from the filter itself. I will call TA today and see what can be done. I'm not understanding how the lube becomes pewter color. I used a Lucas assembly lube, which when applied, looked like a transparent jelly type of lube with a blue hue to it. I did go heavy with the lube despite the recommendation to only lube one lifter. Reason being, is I felt it was the most conservative approach and I thought it would hinder any further wear to the lobes of the camshaft had any wear been present. Still, how does a blueish assembly lube become a pewter colored residue once run for a half hour?

 

Don't think that I'm being snide here and disregarding advice given. I'm very grateful for all you have taught me. I think my last post could've been misunderstood to have a attitude type of tone, which is not the case! :laugh:

 

No, it just sounded like you were perplexed and common sense wouldn't see pewter out of a blue goo.

While I cannot say for sure, I'd guess motor burn byproducts in the oil and the break-in process combined with lots of extra heat would generate some wear sediments that may be held in suspension and give the oil the pewter look.

I have torn apart a few trans that looked like burgundy metalflake paint when the pan was drained.

Pure conjecture on my part.

 

I spoke to Tim at Ta performance about the situation with my engine. He went on to say that they order 2800 lifters at a time. So the likelihood of me having a bad set of lifters is slim to none. That contradicts my understanding which was they purchase sets of lifters from a manufacturer. So his thoughts were if there were so many bad lifters he would be getting multiple calls about this issue. I told him about the several threads I read on the forum with instances of failed lifters and he said that's simply not the case. He told me that there must be something else with my motor that is causing this issue. Then told me to go outside remove the rocker shaft and placed a straight edge over the top of the valves and ensure that they are all within a couple thousandths in height of one another.

So after our conversation, I went outside drain the coolant and remove the intake manifold. To my surprise 11 out of the 16 lifters we're all collapsed to include the number 5 exhaust valve lifter which I just replaced with a new one that he sent me. Every lifter on the passenger side bank was collapsed. What in the world could be causing this issue? I get it that there could be a bad set of lifters but I feel like having so many collapsed could be an indication of something else that's wrong. All of the bottoms of the lifters are still convex, and none of them showed severe wear. The camshaft lobes all still look good. There is no metal in the oil filter. How do I check to ensure that I have the proper spring pressures with a non adjustable pushrod and stock rocker arm set up that I am running? I'm at the end of my wits here.

 

what pushrods are you running and what did you set the preload to?

 

Stock pushrods. I don't know the length. As far as preload, I have no idea. I never removed the passenger side rocker arm. I did remove the drivers side rocker arm to replace the number 5 exhaust valve lifter, and then I just torqued it back on to 25 foot lbs.

 

Am I reading this right? You didn't check lifter preload in the first place?

Devon

 

Yeah, sad but true. As I'm reading more about this topic I see how important this measurement is. I never checked the preload that was set by my machinest as these issues began to arise. When the first lifter failed, I spoke with TA and got a replacement. Once it arrived, I simply installed it, lubed the daylights out of everything, retorqued the rocker, and did another break in procedure. Never had I taken the rocker off from the passenger side. Nor had I any knowledge of preload at the time, much less the foresight to check what my builder had set. I see that as being a catalyst to these lifter failures for sure. I will check them as you instructed Larry and report back my findings. I'm surly gonna feel like the hind end of an elephant if I find out they are not set as they should be and here I've called Tim at TA and made his products out to be the issue. :spank: