I've never had a significant problem with an engine I've built. When I decided to build my 455, I enlisted Daves69 to help me. I figured two sets of eyes would insure we got everything right and once I installed the engine in my freshly painted '49 Buick, I didn't want to have any problems. This was a mild build with a TA 112 cam. Well the Buick Gods didn't smile on me. After doing the initial break-in, I drove the car around a little. I have pretty bad hearing loss so I didn't really notice anything too bad. Later, I drove the car about 20 miles to my upholsterer and left it there for over a month. I drove it home and had an appointment for an alignment, so I drove it another 10 miles or so and noticed a back clacking sound. I took the valve covers off and found the #2 intake rocker was "floppy", so I removed the intake and saw that I had destroyed a lobe and a lifter. After gnashing of teeth, I ordered another TA112 and lifters and meticulously installed them in the engine without removing it. That is more easily typed than done. After 10 minutes of run time, Dave told me to cut the engine, so I did. He heard a noise. I let it cool down and waited until the next day to fix it. After fixing the suspected problem, I forgot to plug the distributor in and the engine didn't fire. So, I pulled the valve covers to check timing and discovered 2 rockers were "floppy". Now I'm looking for a knife to slash my wrists! After removing the intake, rockers and pushrods, I discovered I had two dead lifters. So, I disassembled them and they had NO SPRINGS in them. I guess they were originally pumped up during testing but they were totally flat now. Fortunately, the cam looked ok. After discovering this, I decided to disassemble the first failed lifter and discovere the check valve was not properly seated in the body during assembly. So both times, I had a faulty lifter causing my problems. After discussing this with Mike, Sr. at TA, the first lifter was a Johnson and the second two were Eaton. Now, I am waiting on replacement lifters for the two with no springs and will, once again, try to get my engine running properly. I said all this to say this, if you are building an engine right now, pay extra attention to the lifters. Their quality is not guaranteed.
Who would ever predict a day one would have to do a tear down, inspection and blueprint rebuild on a new set of lifters. SMH. Hope you get good parts and put all this behind you.
I’m sure from dealings with TA Performance they will make things right It SUCKS, like has been said that you have to critique NEW parts If it makes you feel any better, years ago I bought a set of Crane (Chevy) lifters from Summit Racing, I looked in the box and a few of them had rust, took em back and got another set. I figured Chevy lifters move faster than Buick off the shelf, and there would be fewer quality issues, but I guess not
A longtime ago I had a issue like this so it’s nothing new, but maybe just more frequent these days. since that time on unless I am using Rohades lifters I treat everyone one of the 16 lifters as if they where the oil pump for the motor, so I them get taken apart and inspect them and check the fit of the plunger, and don’t you know that quite a few times I found small machining crap left in them!! You can’t assume anything these days ! I have also been burnt by thinking early on that after getting a crank cut undersized and back from the shop that I did not have to run solvent and a long clean out brush thru every oil passage.
They gave me 3 new lifters and an intake gasket. I understand that they dont make the parts. Had a long talk with Mike. Nice guy.
That's a good idea. Unfortunately, the roller lifters can't easily be taken apart due to the tie bar attachment.
Yes, he is. I had a long talk with him too a while back about the timing covers, oil pumps, and harmonic balancers.
Thousands of years ago, I put an Olds 455 together. One lifter would not pump up. Caught that on the test-stand. Pulled that lifter out, and disassembled it. Missing the check-valve at the bottom. From then on, I don't install hydraulic lifters without AT LEAST pumping them full of ATF and verifying the leakdown rate. I'm at the point now where I just disassemble them one-at-a-time for cleaning and inspection. I do have to be careful when setting lifter preload to allow time for the pumped-up lifters to bleed down.
I've read here many times now of lifter issues and while I was assembling my engine last winter, I decided to go ahead and go through all 16 "new" lifters and see what I had. Two of them would not oil... one had the metering plate installed upside down... the other I never figured out why it wouldn't, even after swapping it around. Ordered another pair just in case and found a good one. I made real sure that they oiled on the stand before I put it all together and installed the engine.
