If you ever opened up a phaser and studied how it works in relation to the complete oil system all together you would see that there is a really big volume of oil in those chambers and you would know that it can only be vented so fast because of basically an orifice allowing it to empty at a certain speed, it can not "snap" back, it takes time for that oil to be vented from the phaser. The FACT is the needle bearing size on the lifter was significantly reduced in 2009 and so a smaller particle of anything can stop one from rolling just like how a penny on the floor in the grocery store can stop your buggy wheel from rolling and it will get a flat spot on the wheel that keeps getting worse as it stops intermittently and skids on the flat spot even more but a train wheel will just keep rolling over one like it wasn't even there. That's why the lifters fail and throwing more oil at it will not do anything to stop it.

I would love to see someone with actual spintron data backing up your claim. Maybe you worked there and couldn't figure this out and that would explain why they are still wiping lobes 15 years after the problem surfaced, if it was snapping back and causing this problem it would be super easy to solve with a computer software update to slow it down even more... Engineers really do some stupid stuff the ordinary everyday man can see is a huge problem but the engineer with his "special education" is clueless.

I don't see how VVT could cause lifter problems. All it does is move the camshaft a few degrees. It was likely a supplier or design change on the actual lifters that caused the issues.

all I know is what we found during the sprintron tests.