That’s the bad link I posted. Watch it, it’s eye opening.

what is the consensus on lifters with an EDM'd hole in the lifter's face ?
should those lifters also be sent out to have the faces redone ?

The oil hole likely is a good idea for HD applications. The lifter face would still need to be cut correctly, or none of these other tricks are going to help. DLC coated lifters is the same thing. What does the crown face look like when measured?

Many of these parts companies have been bought and sold and the shop guys who used to do these parts the right way have likely retired, or have been forced out by these big business mergers. They could have new people not fully aware that their work is off the mark combined with tools that are worn out so the accuracy level has deteriorated etc. etc. The first company who fixes this problem with better made parts and high level of quality control that keeps junk from getting shipped out is going to make a lot of money. The other companies who pretend crummy parts are not their fault will die a slow death.

Agree 100%
My current solid has been in two motors now, street strip(10.40 ish) for 7 years. Howard’s solid with EDM lifters. Other guys have used the same and similar grinds in my circle over the last few years without issue.
If the lifters have zero issue rotating, good lube on startup and good oil, my experience over a very long time is that issues are very rare. Not unheard of, but rare.
Looking at the pictures Chip posted in the OP, my guess is that contamination elsewhere in the motor locked up/ hindered the lifters, right after startup. That is ugly.

I checked the springs this weekend. 130 psi seat pressure and right at 400 psi open. A lot more stout than I expected for open pressure.

I’d give that combo (130 seat/400 open, 1.7 RR) about a 2% chance of surviving break in these days.

In other words……no surprise it didn’t live.

At least the mystery has been solved.

On the plus side….sounds like the current springs would possibly work with a HR cam.

I had a lobe go flat on a good hydraulic flat tappet, when I switched to a set of cylinder heads with hydraulic roller springs after 7,000+ or so miles

Yeah open pressure way too high.

Something I have always done (that I learned from a guy who built 1950's champion NASCAR Hudson Hornet engines...believe it or not) was to take the lifter bottoms and lightly etch them in a figure 8 on a piece of glass using jewelers rouge as an abrasive....he said it micro etched the machined surface to help it retain oil on the mating surface....just wipe them clean with mineral spirits and use GM eos at break-in. He said they break in almost instantly.

Well I always did it on all my flat tappets over the years...and I never lost one even running fairly high spring pressures...not 400 but mid-ish 300's.

Sometimes the old ways are the best

That cam never had a chance. I wonder what else was wrong with that build?

Agree with the above posts - it seems the use of synthetic, non break in oil and excessive spring pressure did the cam in.

Beyond what's already been said, the specific type of damage seen on the lifters seems pretty consistent with what I was advised
might be an excessively high concentration of ZDDP.

According to the lubrication engineer I briefly emailed back and forth with alot of years ago, too much ZDDP can cause spalling and pitting.

Just repeating what I was told, have no idea what's really correct, but he described ZDDP additive use as an attempt to achieve the Goldilocks zone of just-right PPM,
and if you double the amount it usually has the opposite effect of what we want.

i read that some where in a magazine article way back when...........
i can't remember what magazine that was though.

if he used amsoil synthetic for break in that would be a issue

I see no need for more oiling on Mopar V8 blocks do to the excessive lifter to bore clearances, unlike Chevy and some Ford casting every Mopar V8 block I've primed with the lifter valley cover or intake manifold off leak oil like there is no tomorrow, a bunch of oil from the sides, tops and bottoms onto the cam lobes and into the lifter valley which drips down onto the cam also
EDM mods to non roller lifters was started originally for BB Chevy motors that starved those camshafts for oil

Again even the guys who buy and use the highest quality flat tappet cams are having trouble, look at this thread from class racer, these a stock eliminator guys using best parts available https://classracer.com/classforum/showthread.php?t=85341 the flat tappet camshaft is not a reliable piece to put into an engine anymore. The people that knew how to make them are either retired or dead in my opinion, the knowledge is lost. You can jump all the hoops with oils and break-in, but it is a crap shoot. I was a mechanic at a Chevy dealer in the 1970's nobody got excited about break-in on stock engines and special oils they just throwed them together and they worked. The only guys who broke-in cams were performance cams, and most of my buddies who installed smaller performance cams were oblivious to what break-in was and they still worked just fine.

I'm betting a lot of the flat cam problems is that they weren't ground with a the 1 degree slant on the lobes that makes the lifters rotate. I'm willing to listen to other theories.

I used to buy bulk sets of solid lifter off of Jim Dowel at Racer Brown. I’m probably down to one set now. I should call him and have a short talk about this.

Internet seems to suggest that all lifters need to be measured and verified today. Cams also, but the cams appear to be less of a problem. The more I read and watch about cam and lifter failures the less I think the oils are the issue, especially if your cam is not crazy big.

The majority of the cam companies claiming to be selling USA made lifters appear to be selling Johnson brand lifters, and not the Hylift Johnson made ones. Doing some reading on a Pontiac site a few days ago about cam and lifter failures and the guy who owns Jones Racing Cams told everyone that the Hylift made ones are the preferred ones to get.