Roller lifter failure question

First I tried building this motor with the best parts I could buy for a fast street/strip truck. Last week at around 1000 miles and 20 passes it broke a Comp Ultra Pro Magnum rocker on #7 ex. I had a a set of older comp rockers so I replaced the broke one and I checked the lash on the rest of the valves. All good. Drove about 100 miles and on the way back it started making noise about 5 miles from home. It was late and I assume it was another broken rocker so I limped it the rest of the way.

Checked rockers the next day and they were all good but #3 intake had loose lash. Pulled the intake and sure enough it killed the lifter and the cam lobe. These are brand new Crower bushing direct oil feed solid rollers. I called Crower and he said the oil (Valvoline VR1 20/50) and spring pressures (250 seat 800 open) were what they recommended for the lifters. He said something along the lines of the lifters blocking the oil holes in the bore I believe and to check with a flash light through the block. He said the lifters should last 20-30k and they are tested at 1000lbs for 60 days on a machine. This is a brand new A460 block and was assemled by a local high performance machine shop. Is this what happened to cause an extremely early lifter failure? Before it goes back together I surely want to fix whatever could have caused it. They said to send back the lifters and they will be able to tell if they are starved for oil. The other 15 look and roll perfect with no play.

Could be a number of things if it wasn’t oiling.

Bad spring, something binding or contacting, bad rocker/rockers, improper lash

dfree383 wrote:Could be a number of things if it wasn’t oiling.

Bad spring, something binding or contacting, bad rocker/rockers, improper lash

Springs were brand new at the same time as the motor and all valve train parts with 1000 miles. I visually checked the springs and the truck gave no indication of a weak spring as other motors I’ve had did in the past. I thouroughly checked the remaining rockers and the pushrods and all are good as far as I can tell. Lash was checked cold the day after the rocker broke at .020 which was .025 hot. The broke lifter had excessive lash after the lifter went. Has a Jomar stud girdle as well. As far as binding/contacting I don’t see anything and all lifters move freely in the bores.

I was asking if anyone had issues with the oiling to the lifters like Crower said and how they remedied the situation.

tfsbbf466 wrote: I visually checked the springs and the  truck gave no indication of a weak spring as other motors I’ve had did in the past.  .

You can visually check a spring to see if it is weak?

tfsbbf466 wrote:

dfree383 wrote:Could be a number of things if it wasn’t oiling.

Bad spring, something binding or contacting, bad rocker/rockers, improper lash

Springs were brand new at the same time as the motor and all valve train parts with 1000 miles. I visually checked the springs and the  truck gave no indication of a weak spring as other motors I’ve had did in the past.  I thouroughly checked the remaining rockers and the pushrods and all are good as far as I can tell. Lash was checked cold the day after the rocker broke at .020 which was .025 hot. The broke lifter had excessive lash after the lifter went. Has a Jomar stud girdle as well. As far as binding/contacting I don’t see anything and all lifters move freely in the bores.

I was asking if anyone had issues with the oiling to the lifters like Crower said and how they remedied the situation.

Don’t have a closed mind, just because you think you’ve checked everything doesn’t me you did, go back over everything again.

Check retainer to guide clearance, rocker to retainer clearance, pushrods to head clearance, clearance between the stud and rockers, poly lock to rocker, make sure all the valve seals are in the correct positions and. Othing has come off or changed position to cause a bind

Got to watch you have the proper poly locks on comp rockers too, some have a small shoulder.

And as Jason has said a visual inspection can not detect a weak spring, but you can look for patterns on valve tips that can indicate an issue.

So you don’t think it was an oiling issue? I’ll check the valve tips and I’ll double check clearances on the rockers throughout the cycle but all of this should have been taken care of by the shop. And I’ll remove the spring of the failed lifter off and have it checked as well as feel for any bind in the valve guide.

Any pictures of the broken lifter and cam lobe?
I have heard of cam lobes when the cam was ground - went through (or close to) the hardening depth. This caused a soft area
where the cam would fail - taking out lifter of course.
Also check the lifter to make sure the oiling passage to the lifter bushing is not blocked. I have seen crankshafts where oiling holes are not
completely through to rod journals.

This will require careful detective work.

many times I had guys say the springs are good, Till I take one off and stick it in the tester,and then check installed and thats wrong also.

.020 cold lash is a little on the loose side for my taste. Especially if you’re talking intake and exhaust being the same.

stanger68 wrote:.020 cold lash is a little on the loose side for my taste. Especially if you’re talking intake and exhaust being the same.

That all depends upon what the recommended lash is supposed to be ... some grinds are even a lot wider than that.

My cam card calls for .026/.028 so I didn’t want to go too tight. I always ran flat tappets at .015 cold and had extremely good luck with them in my old set up with 100s of passes and 1000s of street miles. That’s why I almost went flat tappet on this build but was 1) afraid the power would be weak especially building such a big motor with big heads I didn’t want sub par performance and 2) some were concerned I’d have longevity issues with a big sft in this build with these heads and heavy valve train and 3) I bought the cam used from dirt_worker and purchased the same components (but brand new) he did in his build hoping I’d have similar results with longevity. But as I should have expected, no such luck.

I’ll have all the springs checked especially the valve that had the failure. Sucks when you call or ask 10 different people and get 10 different opinions on the issues you have a lot of things to check and unless I find a problem who knows how long it will last next time.

tfsbbf466 wrote: Sucks when you call or ask 10 different people and get 10 different opinions on the issues you have a lot of things to check and unless I find a problem who knows how long it will last next time.

The problem with asking questions without any pictures is that you will get many answers (possibilities) to what MAY have happened.
Many of the checks have already been answered, and there are several more.
Without pictures it is a guessing game - and that is why you are seeing many varied answers.
We (replying to post) are trying to be helpful. But without seeing the components - or without pictures all we can do is speculate.

Perhaps we should ask Kreskin? Perhaps many are not old enough to know who Kreskin is.

[quote="68galaxie"]

tfsbbf466 wrote:

Perhaps we should ask Kreskin? Perhaps many are not old enough to know who Kreskin is.

Ha-Ha ... I thought he was gone when Johnny Carson died. Did someone else pick-up that act...?

How long have the valve springs been on the engine? Are we talking months or years? I've run rollers on the street for many years and the only times I ever had problems with roller lifter failure was when the springs got weak. Not saying this is what happened to you, but it is a strong possibility. 1000 street miles is quite a bit for a heavy spring like that.

Also, on a related note, I put 1.6 rockers on when I am doing a lot of street driving. Then I put on 1.73 or 1.8 rockers only when I am racing. That seems to help, by just reducing the valve lift quite a bit. My springs are Comp Pacaloy 951-16 which have 230/710 pressures. The lift on my cam is .761" with 1.73 rockers and .704" with 1.6 rockers. The Pacaloy springs hold up really well. But I never run any spring more than 2 to 3 years. Also, I have one of those Moroso spring checkers that you can set over the rocker to check the springs while they are installed. It's not exact, but you can definitely see if any springs are getting weak.

Here are pics of the broken rocker and lifter. Valve springs were new when installed back in May I believe. We had issues with the heads so the motor wasn’t dynoed until August. I got the motor back in the beginning of September and drove it 1000 miles from then until now. I have the same moroso spring checker but they don’t work on steel rockers. The truck is driven and raced often so switching rockers is not an option. My cam is .800 .773 lift was in a similar motor with the same brand lifters and similar springs with 5-7000 miles.

Every time I have seen a rocker break like that there has been some binding between rocker and push rod. Look on the back of rocker and see if the push rod has touched.

I had a problem a few year ago with my first set of roller lifters that might be your problem. The oil feed hole in the lifter does not go down into the oil gallery - it is designed to get oil that bleeds up the side of the lifter. If the clearance is too tight, no or little oil gets into the lifter. We had to cut a grove down the side of the lifter to get proper oil into the lifter. That oils the lifter and pushrod.

I believe that is what Crower explained to me but I’ve been unable to remove my crank sprocket in order to check through the lifter passage while turning the cam. Heads and valve springs are being checked now. Motor is out but the crank sprocket won’t budge. I stripped my pulled removing the balancer.