So you think Morel lifters are the best? *update 2*

Guess what, they screw up too. This is a pair of their 5321 hydraulic retrofit roller lifters for an LA. I had been fighting an oiling issue with one lifter. I thought I just got a piece of trash in it. Called Hughes Engines and ordered a single pair because you can't take them apart as the pushrod seat won't clear the rivet for the link. So curiosity got the best of me and I drilled the rivets and took them apart. So looking at the pics the first one is the good lifter. You can see where the oil hole in the body intersects with a relief cut into the inside of the lifter body so the plunger doesn't block the oil flow. In the second pic you can see where the relief isn't cut deep enough to intersect the oil supply hole. Now will Dave warranty this for me? I'm going to call them and see what they say.

Maybe they should of just told you they would swap it out for you since it was a bad "new" lifter.

But id say 50/50 but if one tells you no, call back and get the other, you can count on two diff answers on everything from those 2 guys.

Well I initially thought it was trash in the lifter and now that I've drilled the rivets out holding the link bar on, well, who knows? But, at least I know it wasn't my fault and I have concrete evidence of what was wrong. You can bet I will be blowing air into the replacements before I reassemble it, I'm tired of buying intake gaskets.

If you do a search for “hydraulic roller lifter noise”, or problems you will find there is no shortage of people experiencing less than optimal results.
No lifter brand seems exempt from this....... and certainly not Morel.

That’s a good catch.
If Hughes won’t take care of it, maybe sending the pics to Morel might get you somewhere.

I would expect a little more noise from them but this was loud, like collapsed lifter or flat lobe loud, I cut the top off an old rocker cover and ran the engine so I could see what was going on and there was no oil getting to the rocker on that lifter. All the others were fine. But in the end it's $55.00, not sure it's even worth the additional aggravation at this point.

So I got the replacements and can't blow through either one of them. Called Hughes and talked to the other Dave, went through the whole scenario with him. I told him I didn't want to install these lifters because the good lifter flows air freely through it and these do not. He agreed and said he would air check a set on Monday before he sent them out to me. Asked me to send all the others back to him and apologized for the trouble I was having. So no bashing of Hughes here, they were good, I know it's not their fault but this has certainly soured me on Morel. I try to buy made in the USA but when you come across crap like this it really makes you think twice. I'm very disapointed.

So do you have a contact email or something for Morel, because they say they won't deal with the general public or individual engine builders, they want you to go through one of their dealers.
This really should be the 3rd strike, poorly machined lifter, replacements not any better and no way to contact them. Not exactly what I'd call great customer service or product.

Chevy & Ford Guys trying to build Mopar parts again... Oh boy !!!! I lay odds John Callies group is doing the offshore deal?
Good Luck, Hope you get a good batch to get you by...

Might be impossible to do this, but if you mailed the messed up lifter to the right person's office with a polite, but firm letter describing the issue maybe that would get their attention.

From the post preceding this one, it sounds like Hughes is going to take care of it for you, so you should be all set.

Looking at how that one lifter of yours was improperly machined, my gut feeling is that it’s unlikely that situation was limited to one unit.

The other thing that’s been highlighted by the fact that you got that lifter in the first place is....... they obviously aren’t checking the bleed rate of those lifters as part of any final QC check.
Since no oil can get into it with that manufacturing defect........ it would(should) fail any bleed rate test(unless zero seconds is within spec).

I’m not a big hyd cam fan in general, which by extension means I’m not really a big hyd roller fan either.
On the occasions where Im not able to talk a customer out of one, or the rare situation where it really makes the most sense for the application........ I’ll have to try and source the lifters from another manufacturer besides Morel.

One other thing learned is...... don’t install them without first giving them the air blow thru test.

for future reference how are you testing them?

Almost all the cams and lifters I sell go straight to the customer, so I never see them....... hence, “I” don’t test them.

On the rare occasion it’s something I put together myself, and the even rarer occasion that I’m putting something together with hyd lifters........ I actually don’t follow the manufacturers instructions.
I pump oil into the lifters through the oil feed hole in the side, and then check to see that they are pumped up hard before installing them into the motor.
I just let the valve springs bleed them back down.

I can’t even remember what the last hyd cammed motor I put together myself was.
I bet it’s been over 10 years.

I hardly do any assembly work anymore.
The last bit of that I did was last year....... where I actually took out a hyd cam and replaced it with a SFT.

I would have loved to put the solid roller I had in it but by the time I bought the stud kit, rockers, pushrods, and lifters I would have been in way too deep for a mountain climbing truck. It isn't a race car or even any kind of competition truck so it doesn't make sense to spend that kind of money on it.

I'd like to second that request...when I read "...air blow thru test...", to me that means:

1) clean the lifter
2) feed air into the oiling hole on the lifter body (normally the part of lifter body which is located in the lifter bore)
3) watch the pushrod cup move up to the fully pressurized position

...makes sense?

I think the last install of hydraulic flat tappets I did I used the approach fast68plymouth described, but these were the anti pump-up lifters, so I literally ran them with 0 (zero) pre-load, and therefore didn't worry much about them getting too pumped up at the start.

Now that I'm moving to the hydraulic roller setup I'd rather spend whatever extra time it takes to measure & verify in order to hopefully give me a better final outcome.

They should flow air through them in either direction. It's easier to blow air into the pushrod seat and you should feel air coming out the feed hole. I had several used hydraulic lifters laying around, both roller and flat and that is how I determined I had a bad one and that the replacements were also bad.

If you want to run a hydraulic roller in a BBM the go with Hy-Lift Johnson lifters. Only ones that seem to be worth a damn. Talked to them at PRI for awhile, a good friend who is an engine builder in Canada has had good luck with them

It's a small block but at $800 for a set of Johnsons I might have just put the mechanical roller in it. Thanks though, I don't think I had seen them before.

So Hughes has overnighted another pair of lifters to me at no charge. For all the bashing I've seen of Hughes here and in other places I can't say they haven't been good to me. I'll report back when I get them and test them for myself.

I'm not keeping score, but it seems when I read or hear about someone having a cam or lifter failure it's a hydraulic setup. Is a solid cam setup less likely to have issues just because the lifter has no moving parts to fail?

If someone was planning a hot street engine build - roller cam with duration in the 230s low 240s would it just be safest to go with a solid roller? I mean I must have adjustable rockers regardless whether Hyd or solid and I don't mind lash adjusting. I just want year after year of trouble free performance.

if you want hassle free performance from your combination you need to buy all the good parts in the valve train with the correct spring pressure and oil the spring good enough, full time oiling, and check the lash several times while all the parts wear in and then check it if it makes noise or twice a year
I use lash caps, Harland Sharp full roller rocker arms, Manton series 3 or 5 pushrods and PAC valve springs, I have all my BB solid roller cam #4 cam journal groove so it oils the rockers full time I had to learn that the block will need a .040 to .060 size oil restrictor in the feed to the rocker shafts also to not flood the top end and or make the oil level in the oil pan to low for racing, depending on how big your oil pan is, stock or after market.
IHTHs

My bad, they make SB and BB drop ins. Anyone looking to go this route these seem to be the best

https://www.johnsonlifters.com/Products/HydraulicRollerLifters.aspx

Nice....even the short-travel option is available for a SB Mopar...yey!

Cab_Burge,


So I've gotta ask b/c I'm struggling with the spring oiling aspect on my SB W2 setup.

I purchased the 1.6 ratio rockers from HS. When they came in I noticed a lack of an oil-feed/spray passage from the rocker to the spring, my thinking being: cool them things down with oil!

Well, I called HS and the gentlemen I spoke with said "no worries, there is plenty enough splash lubrication there", OK, but in my setup I'm talking a street/trip ride, so hardly a limitted and feverish 1/4 mile pass at a time.

He acknowledged my point, but said that after thousands of sets sold he hasn't had any problems with them even in regulat street use. In fact he advised that I may have to consider restricting the oil feed given that these are roller rockers (shaft section) and too much oil here just turns into a wide-open leak. The person I spoke with was Chris I think, but I'm not 100% certain, he was super nice and gave me all the time I needed to just come to grips with this setup. Still, some time later as I'm finally starting the motor assembly I am worried about this.

As we prepped my W2 heads we actually put in a thread on the oil-feed passage from the block so that I can easily toss in a restrictor into this spot (if need be) w/o having to take anything else apart.

So in your config, given that you already use a restrictor, how exactly are you getting a reasonable amount of full-time oil feed to the springs?

I'm not expecting a steady oil gush over these things, but w/o some sort of feed passage pointing at them how will they get any oil?

I had HS rockers on my W5's. No problem oiling the springs but if you want to visualize it, start the engine without the rocker covers on it.

I run HS rockers on W2s on a street engine with a .650ish lift solid roller and a comp endurance spring. I haven't had any issues with springs in the 5 or 6 thousand miles it has been together. My cam is grooved so it oils full time with no restriction. Just FYI.

So after a mistake in shipping on Monday Hughes overnighted me another set on Tuesday. Yeah they screwed up but they did what they could do to correct it, so no issues with Hughes and this pair of lifters work fine. But for some reason I have a dead hole (#7) now. So now a leak down and/or compression test is on the horizon to see if I'll be pulling that head back off. I know I should have checked the heads better than I did. For some reason I just can't throw junk together and have it work like some others I know.

All fixed now and it runs good. I didn't check the preload on every lifter and the 2 on #7 cylinder were bottoming out the lifter .080-.085 preload my ass. They must be fairly short travel lifters. I checked it using air pressure first without the rockers on and then with them on. It leaked through both the intake and exhaust. I had some .022 brass stock so I made 4 shims to put 2 under each rocker and it works great and runs well. Yeah adjustable rockers would have taken care of that but with 170,000 mile heads on it now I couldn't justify spending that money on junk. Hopefully it will last until I kick the bucket or can't drive anymore.
So the Morel of the story is, blow air through them to make sure they will oil and about .045 preload is all you need.