[Vettezuki]

Cool. I'll let you know. Hoping to catch a break here, but doesn't usually work for me . . .

[Ryridesmotox]

Or if you can wait for a week, I can have my dad drop it off for you. He makes weekly trips to gardena for work. He drives a company car, he'll make a detour for me

[Shaolin Crane]

Originally Posted by Vettezuki

His experience of building with them. On a moderate street performance motor like mine, nothing actually shows up as an objective advantage in the data. It's not that they are terrible, just the ROI isn't there. He had technical spiel about why GM OE lifters are overall better for moderate applications but I don't recall the details. Real high performance motors was a different story. The LS7 lifters seem to be the go to for street motor rebuilds. I think that's what Nate uses for that matter.

Ryder, so other than the reluctor, the L76 rotating assembly can go into an LQ9 (Gen III 6L Iron block)?


I'll know about the block and heads today hopefully. If they are ok, probably stay with stock displacement and essentially same cam to avoid the cascade of other costs, like a retune, before which I'd want to do headers, which includes new cats, a cross-member rework, etc. $1k~ in rods and crank starts to look like $4k real fast. Meaning my <$4k rebuild including all parts and labor starts to look like $8k. Cars!

Its a a Johnson lifter, which is the OE for nearly everyone. There is nothing a johnson lifter does better than a link bar, I repeat nothing. I will never use a stock style lifter on anything ever again, especially on a LS that uses a plastic tray to locate the lifter. They spin all the time and its usually from mid rpm harmonics than anything. I can give you all kinds of facts, threads, blah blah but no lifter will do anything better than a link bar except cost.

[Vettezuki]

Most of what I have seen on lifter failure when someone bothers to analyze the mode failure and not make assumptions indicates it's a poorly matched spring rate, improperly measured push rod length, etc. His point was OE performs just fine in moderate applications when properly installed. Big cam race motor, different story.

Heads came in at 60cc and motor with stock pistons apparently 11.2:1. Which explains why especially in the summer I had to bump my gas with a little Torco or Toluene to avoid pinging. Headers and a retune might fix that problem but I'll lower it anyway so I can run commie gas without worries.

[Vettezuki]

If I'm understanding correctly, a -7cc dish should take me to around 10.9.

[Shaolin Crane]

Originally Posted by Vettezuki

Most of what I have seen on lifter failure when someone bothers to analyze the mode failure and not make assumptions indicates it's a poorly matched spring rate, improperly measured push rod length, etc. His point was OE performs just fine in moderate applications when properly installed. Big cam race motor, different story.

Heads came in at 60cc and motor with stock pistons apparently 11.2:1. Which explains why especially in the summer I had to bump my gas with a little Torco or Toluene to avoid pinging. Headers and a retune might fix that problem but I'll lower it anyway so I can run commie gas without worries.

Exactly, you are no where near an OE setup any more and skimping on valve train, as you have just learned personally is a recipe for disaster, anything more than 120lbs on a spring and you should have link bars, as well as anything over .550 lift. Like I said before "big" is relative. What makes a cam "big"? Lots of lift? Lots of duration? Don't skimp on the valve train.

[Ryridesmotox]

Yea I agree. Stock lifters are less than ideal. Tons of guys use them and tons of shops install them with big cams and heavy springs. I'm not sure why, but people think the LS7s are the end all, be all. The LS7 breaks all the time. I'm going to use a link bar in mine. Looking at a set of crane link bar lifters. Not that much more than stock. There are failures all the time of lifters because people don't use them properly.

Another issue is rockers. Many people use stock rockers. They start spitting needle bearings when you abuse them. So people put the upgraded trunnions and bearing to a captured needle type... Which is fine, but you can't use them in a .650+ lift combo. People do, things break, people blame the rockers.

[Vettezuki]

Originally Posted by Shaolin Crane

Exactly, you are no where near an OE setup any more and skimping on valve train, as you have just learned personally is a recipe for disaster, anything more than 120lbs on a spring and you should have link bars, as well as anything over .550 lift. Like I said before "big" is relative. What makes a cam "big"? Lots of lift? Lots of duration? Don't skimp on the valve train.

I get your point, I guess it's relative. I'm beyond OE for sure, but pretty moderate compared to nutters. FTM my LS1 lifters (and rockers) look 100% fine. I'll bring it up again and make sure we're on the same page.

My primary failure was a rod bearing, that's what was making noise and best guess indicates a detonation precipitated the impending failure. Pulling it apart we discovered (so far) a broken ring and a chewed up cam. Previously it was an AM spring that popped. Unless I'm forgetting something, nothing OE in the valve train failed or even looks tired. It's not a lot of money difference, so that's not my concern here, but spending a few hundred dollars extra for nothing more than a little more valve train noise in reality doesn't appeal to me either.

[Shaolin Crane]

There was an engine builder challenge some time ago where they took a stock LS3 engine and the only changes were a trunion upgrade, chromoly pushrods, 165lb dual coil springs, billet timing set and link bar lifters and it was good for 33bhp.

If you want to go the money way. Comp magnum rockers, comp XM Pushrods, Comp lifters, Lunati Chromoly springs

If you want to go the cheap way, Pro comp everything, which I wouldn't recommend

Or the sensible way. Morel Lifters, PNW/PNP pushrods, Trunion upgrade, EP, or Comp springs.

[Vettezuki]

Originally Posted by Ryridesmotox

. . There are failures all the time of lifters because people don't use them properly.

This is all I've found. It's not the lifter so much but people just plain configuring their valve train wrong. How many LS7 lifters fail in stock LS7s after even many hard miles? Not many that I'm aware of. The max lift on a stock LS7 is like .590~ and they spin up to 7k.