Its 2020 and the mere mention of a flat tappet cam makes me cringe. thats because of the decreased quality of the cam and lifters resulting in failures. the proper fix makes me cringe too. Roller cam conversion. $$$ But the failures are across all brands of engines and cannot be blamed on improper break in. Many guys who do it correct and they were met with a big fat failure due to crappy quality. Tony Defeo made a video recently ranting about his failure. He said no more flat tappets. If a guy who is a pro for doing things on the cheap has sworn off flat tappet cams and going roller then its a real problem.
He is not alone, many people that do restorations will only use rollers, if not it is on the owners dime when the cam fails, not the shop eats the repair. A used 30-40 year old cam that looks good, and will spin all the lifters when turned by hand, might be better than new. I agree on break in, in the 70s we threw cams in everything, never went flat, now we are to dumb and are breaking it in wrong even with break in oil, I think the new parts are junk, and would worry more about the new lifters than a cam that can spin them.
