Hey all,

Building a fairly mild 66 mm x 96 mm short stroke motor (heads opened up a bit, mild cam). Just looking for recommendations for rings unless whatever AA P&Cs come with are considered good enough. Also looking for good lifter recommendations too. Not going hydraulic.

Thanks!

Randy

The lifters will depend a lot on who you go to for your cam, and whether it is a regrind, or cut from a fresh blank. My experience with lifters is only related to having cams re-ground. If that is the direction you plan on going, let me know and I'll tell my story, but its awfully long, and not relevant or interesting if you're going the webcam route. Haha

Elgin Cams happens to be here in my town. They do have a reground cam that my machinist now has. It's been completely gone through. I'll bite. What's the difference between a reground cam and one made from a blank? Both Elgin and my machinist seem to think it's okay.

Thanks,

Randy

A reground camshaft should maintain the factory hardness. When I had my cam reground by Schneider in San Diego, they recommended using OEM lifters over those manufactured by Webcam or SCAT due to possible incompatibility of cam/lifter hardness. This is something I cannot say for a fact is true, but I figured I wouldn't chance having either a cam go flat, or lifters mushroom out, so I bought new OEM lifters.

A cam blank is hardened to whatever hardness the manufacturer chooses, and if they manufacture lifters as well, one would assume that the lifter face and cam lobe hardness are matched together. I would not run OEM lifters with an aftermarket new blank cam for the reason as stated above.

Now for my "story" in regards to new manufactured OEM lifters.

I purchased a box of new Mahle lifters and did the chromoly pushrod/911 swivel feet adjuster valvetrain setup. The Mahle lifters survived break-in no problem, but failed after a period of around 1,000 miles in a place one would never expect them to fail, at the push-rod cup. During the 1,000 mile period I had to do valves 3 time and knew something was wrong. I pulled a lifter out at one point to verify that face wasn't smearing, and it definitely was not. Nothing visually looked wrong, and I was stumped. I finally decided to remove all of them and figure out what was wrong, and it turned out that the pushrod cup on the lifter was sinking in to the body of the lifter substantially. I have a picture around here somewhere that shows how much the pushrod wore into the lifter, but it was a solid 1/2 inch on some lifters.

I then went and purchased a set of FEBI lifters (a sub-company of Bilstein). On type 4 lifters with the Parkerizing, it is really obvious how far the heat treating has occurred away from the lifter face, and the FEBI lifter face heat treatment was probably 1/2 inch farther up into the body of the lifter. My best guess as to why the lifters failed was that the entire body of the lifter may not have been properly case hardened after final machining, which left the pushrod cup softer than it should have been, or perhaps significantly softer than new chromoly pushrod tips.

The FEBI lifters have worked flawlessly for me the 2 years or so I ran the motor as a daily driver, and continues to run great for Mike.

See, told you it was a long story

BTW, this is only my experience, and I cannot say it will always ring true for every single situation. For all I know, I could have gotten a bad batch of lifters from Mahle, or there was some other issue at play that would cause this to have occurred. I'm sure others, maybe even Jake, will chime in with advice and stories, but I do know that a lot of type 1 guys have had quality issues with the Mahle lifters.

Thank you for sharing your experience. I'll be sure to take this into consideration.

So what lifters are recommended, or simply make sure you don't go with a reground cam? I don't see how cam and lifter harness differences would make it so the pushrod would sink into the cup. That sounds like you had a lifters that were too soft on that surface. I just can't see how the mating surface between the cam and lifter face would have any affect on the problem you experienced.

Perhaps I'm missing something?

Were you running stiffer springs? Was there more pressure on your pushrods than a stock motor?

Thanks again!

Ethan is correct - that motor continues to run great. I am getting in it right now and driving to lunch and won't hesitate to drive from Durango to Moab in September for the Red Rock Classic.

Cam Lobe/Lifter face hardness compatibility, and the issue I had with the push-rod cup are two independent problems that aren't related. Sorry, I should have been more specific on that. Lobe/Lifter compatibility issues will result in a flat cam while the hardness of the lifter body resulted in the issue I described with the pushrod sinking into the lifter.

There is nothing wrong with a reground cam IMO, as long as you are installing cut-to-length pushrods to account for the smaller base circle diameter of the cam lob.

The surface hardness on the face of the Mahle lifters was great from what I could tell, just that pushrod cup surface wasn't hard enough. I was running springs with just slightly more spring pressure over the stock type 4 valve springs. By no means enough to cause this kind of failure.

I would honestly ask Elgin which lifters they recommend since they were the company that re-ground it.

Thanks for the clarification! That makes perfect sense.

I think that's a good idea. We'll chat with Elgin. I may still get a new cam from a new blank too!

You guys rock.

So, ring recommendations? I've used Grant before, but I think I got some sh$t from people saying they're not that good. However now I can't remember what was recommend. This was sometime back.

Grant's (any shop) are a PITA to install and are soft, but I've had OK results with them, Hastings (EMW) are better but take longer to break in. The Goetze (Pelicanparts) are hard and take forever to break-in, but should give long wear.
I just ordered a set of Deve's to try (aircooled[dot]net), they claim to break in fast then last. At $70 they're a little cheaper than the Goetze.

The last set of Grants I used seemed to break in really fast. How long do the Hastings rings take compared to the Grants?

What's the main concern about rings that take longer to break in? I'm not saying that to be a smart ass - I really don't know!

Thanks Mark

I'll sell you a brand NIB never used raby cam with matching lifters cheap.

You would have to have the cam reground to your specs since this is a radical race cam, but since it has so much lift, it probably has more meat than your typical cam.

Thanks! I'll probably work with the cam that I have. Appreciate the offer.

Anybody know what wrong with my car. I was driving the car shut off and now won't start. I replaced the spark plugs but nothing any tip would help also it's a carb 2.0 1973!!! Help!!!!

I'm sorry to hear about your car, but you need to make a new thread and not post this in my thread. Best of luck!

Ok sorry quick question how do you make a new there's I'm pretty new at this.

What was explained to me years ago (hopefully I don't screw up the explanation)
VW used a "Chill Cast" cam blank in the type 4 (maybe other engines, Audi used them too).
The cam blank is cast and cooled very quickly and this process hardens the whole cam blank all the way thru. There is no hardened surface to wear thru or grind thru as is the case with most heat treated or hardened parts.
So regrinding a type 4 cam, when ground properly, does not deteriorate the hardness of the cam surface. A cam grinder could grind it too fast or not cool it properly or create a bad wear surface but that is not what you will get with Elgins. I started using Elgin cams over 20 years ago and never had a problem.

The cam Elgins has reground for you, has the same surface hardness and surface roughness (there is a term for that) as an OE cam. So you want to use OE equivalent lifters, we normally source them thru WorldPac but they were a normal supplier for us. Sorry I don't recall the brand lifters I used in the past but Febi is a good brand I have used for other parts.

Most aftermarket cams are ground on a cast blank and then the surface is heat treated and may have an additional wear treatment. With these cams you need to use lifters that are specifically made to be comparable with their surface treatment. If you are using a Web Cam use their lifters, if you use Raby cam or anyone else's cam use their lifters.

You are using an OE cam (just reground) use OE lifters.

Jim

Thanks Jim! That's very useful information. Much appreciated!

Hey Randy, while you're there could you ask about my cam and one lifter that has been there for over a year?

(Another long story, sorry.)

I sent a cam to Rich for regrind along with 8 lifters. When I got the cam back it did not look anything like the last one that they had done for me. (This was right about the time they were moving north.)

The parkerizing was very thin, and the original wear pattern was visible through it, so I asked Rich to send it back for evaluation. (It looked to me like it was just a stock cam that had had the grooves ground out.)

About the same time I finally opened the package of lifters and discovered that one of them had a drop of weld splatter stuck on the side of it, so both items are somewhere up there, in limbo, I guess. I did ask Rich about it a month or so ago, but haven't heard back yet. The worst part is, I mentioned the cam to my machinist when I dropped off my crank and rods, so he knows he does not have to finish them till Elgin gets my cam back to me, so he's taking his time too...

Not a fan of stock reground cams, but thats just me. The same goes for factory lifters.

Also not a fan of Grant rings.