Hasd anybody had success running flat tappet cams nowadays?

Builder had messed up the push rod length in my daughter's 67 Coronet 500. This led me to changing the lifters in the engine.

I have 26 runs on the engine and maybe 200 street miles.

So I pulled the lifters out. 6 or 7 lifters are bad with 2 to 3 of those being pretty bad. No idea on the condition on the cam, but my bet is it is hurt. I will be calling comp cams on Monday to get their opinion. My current plan is to go ahead and put it back together with the new lifters put some runs on it and limit street miles.

I guess I will put a hydraulic roller cam in it when I put the motor in the GTX.

I thought I did everything right. I was running 20W-50 Valvoline VR1 racing oil.

AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!

Is anyone having luck running flat tappet cams nowadays?

I have no problems with flat tappets but will not use Comp cams lifters and rarely use comp cams at all.

I have never used comp cams or lifters but have read lots of post on wiped cam lobes/lifters the last 10 yrs. used a few set of springs though.

I just installed and did the break in on a Hughes 440 whiplash flat tappet cam.

used the supplied joe gibbs break in lube on cam lifters with rotella 10w30 for break in for 35-40 mins.

30 min cool down then changed oil/filter to amsoil 100% full syn high zinc 10w40. 200 miles and all is well and quite.

I've had a lot of problems with crane lifters... I'm about to replace the final eight of them in my Dart. Never seem to hold pressure, once the cars hot they clatter like crazy!

correct breakin oil (enough zinc). reduce spring pressure. make sure lifter/bore clearance is correct ahead of time. goose the throttle many times during the breakin. correct preload. other than that the metallurgy is out of your hands. EDIT what happened with the pushrod length problem?

I have had good luck with flat tappet cams and in fact I have never wiped a cam at all. Right now I run a solid flat tappet cam that is a custom grind from Dwayne Porter. He gives his specs to comp cams who grind what he tells them and he has the cam nitrided. I also run Comp EDS flat tappet lifters with the oil hole in the bottom of them. I broke this cam in around early June 2011. I did remove the inner springs to break the cam in and I use Valvoline 20W-50 VR1 racing oil with a bottle of the Comp zinc additive. Everytime I change my oil I add a small bottle of Riseoline zinc additive along with 7 qts of Valvoline 20W-50 VR1 racing oil and its still running great on all 8 cylinders. I put my inner springs back in about 4 days after breaking in the cam and running the car some each day. I am a believer in the EDM lifters as they have worked flawless in my cars and in my buddies 383 that we broke in his hydraulic flat tappet cam last September. Using the Valvoline VR1 racing oil and a bottle of the zinc additive has worked flawless for me. Ron

besides the oil, the lifter bores should be checked and burnished to make sure the lifters rotate correctly, then break-in the cam with additional oil additive with only the outer springs if using a dual spring setup.
After the cam break-in install the inner springs.

If the lifters were bad, then chances are the cam is also shot.
The metal shavings from the wiped out lifters and cam lobes can scratch the cylinder walls, bearings and oil pump.

I let a cam go to long with a bad lobe lifter and had to have the engine hones, new rings, bearings and oil pump.

I have a solid that's been in my RR for 9 years. Usually it's break in, but now I wonder. I built 2 motors for friends. A BB Mopar and a SB Chev. Both ate cams about 7-8 years after they were built. Both sat for 6-8 months w/o being run every year. Maybe they were just run at Idle during Spring start-up? Don't know. I know the BB had Mobil one. I never got to tear them down since both went out of state. I think its a combination of poor lifter quality and oil type.
Doug

I run a mechanical flat tappet ground by Comp for Muscle Motors. Nitrided I believe. Comp lifters. Rotella T 15W40 + STP. About 15k miles and some track time. Doing fine.

All I've ever run and "never" had a problem,have enough left to outlast me !

I pulled my 408 to freshen it up over the winter, my flat solid was starting to go. The motor had been ran hard for five years. When building the motor I burnished the lifter bores, made sure all the lifters rotated, used EDM lifters and broke the cam in properly without the inner springs. I always ran diesel oil with zinc additive too. A few of my lifters looked like part of the bottom had been hit with a tiny needle scaler. I replaced the springs after three years and stayed on top of the valve lash.

My new engine will have a solid roller in it.

Its a long story but the pushrods were too short and the threads on the rocker adjuster nuts were not fully engaged. Also the preload (hydraulic lifters) was not properly set.

We were making T&T runs and all of a sudden the car started going faster and faster. In 3 runs it dropped around 0.8 seconds! On the final run it lost the water pump belt and overheated.

When it overheated 2 pushrods fell out. That's when I found out the valve train was a mess. I found several cups in the lifters with cracks.

At that time the lifters looked suspicious but not real bad. 26 runs later the lifters are shot.

I have put upteen cams in my cars over the last 35 years. Never had on fail due to break in until now. There is definitely something to be said for today's oil and metallurgy. I'm going with a hydraulic roller..........

I have a flat solid (251*/264*) in the Cuda. Been in there for 5 years or so. Mostly street with a little strip time. The car sees 1,500 miles or so a year.

Out of a dozen FT cams or so the last 15 years, I have had 2 fail. One didn't survive break-in and the other wore down several lobes after a couple of years.

I am really torn as to which lifter to use on my next build. There are as many horror stories about the rollers as there are about the flats. Right now, I am leaning towards the flats again. If going roller were to virtually GUARANTEE no failures, I would spend the coin and go that way. But there are no guarantees given the number of roller failures that I read about here and on the 'bullet.

What do you mean by "the lifters are shot" ? No problems here with a flat tappet other than one potential comp SHELF cam that could have been on it's way to going Flat, I'll only use a Comp now if it's a CUSTOM grind, Comp does not grind their SHELF cams , they outsource ... so I'm told by a reliable source.

Running a comp 274-S solid off the shelf grind with comp lifters. .502/.511 lift minus lash.

Run Castrol 10/30w with Justice Brothers Heavy Duty Vehicle oil additive.

6500 miles so far.

Been running a solid flat tappet in my 451 for 5 years now. Engle cam, lifter and spring package. Broke in on Brad Penn break in oil, been running Lucas Hot Rod 10w-30 with a zinc additive since then. No issues.

Prior to this motor, I ran a hydraulic flat tappet in my 383. No issues there either.

I'm a firm believer that many "cam" failures are actually caused by bad break-in techniques. I've had good luck using Brad Penn break-in oil and the old GM EOS or equivalent Zinc additives. One thing I do RELIGIOUSLY is once I shut the engine off on the initial break-in - I do not restart it until it cools fully. IMO this helps "temper" the cam lobes. Personally I think too many first starts are "media events" with a half dozen buddies, too much beer, and the hot engine gets restarted every 20 minutes like a Chuckie Cheese show.

I had a hydraulic cam that kept on having lifter bleed down issues. I tossed a new set of mechanical lifters in it, ran it through another break-in, and ran it for about 25K miles before we hurt it with a bad NOS fuel solenoid. Yeah, I know - different ramps, will never work - whatever.

I would imagine the majority of cams going into old muscle cars and bracket cars are still flat tappet cams. I make sure my lifters spin in the bores, removed the inner spring and reved it between 2,500 to 3k for 25 min then change oil and filter. Then the next day I do another short 15 min break in change oil and filter. Then I'll drive it for a short trip or two with some idling before installing the inner spring.

about to find out the answer on a 360 were putting together for the kid's Ramcharger I have not yet had an issue but for the 1st time I spent the extra $$ and hd this one nitride.COMP 260H cam and lifters

my only question is this, and it made the cam buy a little maddening; For a damn Chevy or Ford they have a 260 nitrided "off the shelf" fo $40-50 upcharge but because this is a MOPAR cam it was an additional $150 for the nitride version, ordering it nitrided, this common cam became a "custom grind" Cmon now; the nitride machine has no idea what brand of motor the cam is ground for. to the nitride machine this cam was a hunk of metal like all the other hunks of metal that have passed thru it before

Waste of time to nitride a tiny cam.

I recently received a Comp custom(not shelf but for a stocker build) solid lifter cam,the ugliest thing I have ever seen. Bent(not comp's fault? maybe?) extreme casting flash goobers and overall a piece of crap. I knew better but thought I was maybe a little harsh. LOL I'm guessing there is a lot of this crap in engines that goes undetected. Never again! Period!

I ran into the exact same problem with Comp, the sides of the lobes were nasty looking, as matter of fact there was enough flashing on the sides of the cam lobes on #1 cyl if you slid the cam ever so slightly forward, the intake lobe flashing would barely catch the exhaust lifter and actually lift it. So I pulled the cam and sure enough the side every lobe had some sort of flashing on it, (some worse than others) and this was a spec'd cam not an off the shelf kind of thing. Sent the cam back, 3 weeks later it came back with the sides of the lobes all dressed up like it should've been in the first place. Comp Cams... never again, QC is somewhat questionable in my opinion.

Sorry to hear, What a PITA.

"Knock on wood" add me to the camp that has never lost a cam. I have never started a motor with the lash or pre load wrong either.

The cam now in my 340 is in it's third engine with original hydraulic lifters and I have always ran the same original crane gold adjustable rockers. On iron heads and on edlebrock aluminum heads. So I always set the pre load for each lifter on the engine stand. And I beat that car/motor hard now for 26K miles since the last freshen up including like 5 trips to Bonneville where I beat the car for miles at a time over 100 mPH easy.

IMO you can't blame the cam or lifters if the pre load was wrong, even if it's only for a short while. If that happens all bets are off, imo. If all that was perfect and you were keeping an eye on the lash pre load then I was start doubting other stuff.

I would take the motor out and all the way apart and clean it out. Like you said the cam is junk now too. I surely don't blame you for going hydraulic roller, but maybe a solid roller would make more sense? More RPMs for sure.

Make it so you can adjust the valves, That way you keep an eye on the cam lobes through valve lash. Got to pull the valve covers often, it's just good therapy. Do it often and race with confidence. Maybe she can learn to adjust the valves? I taught 3 guys to do it on my dragsters. Although I realize a dragster is 10X easier to work on, no fenders.

We have had our share of good and bad luck with both solid mechanical cams and solid rollers cams. I had a W2 engine wipe a lobe on the solid cam. I had an issue with a solid mechanical in my last hemi and it turned out to be an adjuster that went away. I also broke a solid cam, sheared the last couple lobes clean and still made a pass with it. Never killed any of my engines though.

The way I look at it, the rollers when they go, they often take out the whole engine. When a solid goes, it generally doesn't kill the whole engine, at least in the failures we have seen. Goes without saying you have all those small parts in the roller cams that end up all over when it lets go...Most if not all the failures I have witnessed are the rollers falling apart.

Yes you need good oil with a mechanical, and yes you have to break it in properly, but I like the lower valve spring pressures, I like the lower costs, and I like the lower maintenance over all.

For now, I will stick with my solid mechanical cams. I even put one in my new 605 Hemi....