Bushing the lifter bores

I agree that this is generally a good idea.

What I am thinking about is the wall thickness of the bushing, I believe they are about 1/16 of an inch.

That means the lifter bores have 1/16 inch of material cut away, and on a big block, you can see that
the thickness of the cast iron forming the lifter bore is not very thick at all.

On some race blocks the lifter bore bulkhead is totally solid and thick, it's easy to see how a lifter bushing
has a lot of metal surrounding and supporting it.

With a huge cam I just wonder if lifter bushings weaken the block more than it benefits oil control.

Sort of like overboring a cylinder for a sleeve, I think sleeves are .060~~.080 thick. That's a large overbore, .120~~.160 over.
The sleeve is not part of the parent metal.

Am I looking for a problem when there isn't one ?

Depends on the block and if you would rather spend that money on one of the new race blocks available now that are already done

If my memory serves me correctly, the very first run of Mopar performance hemi blocks had the same lifter galley design as the oem hemi blocks. One of the first changes they made was to increase those bosses. All this was to prevent the potential problem you are referring too. All super stock hemi builders bushed their blocks as part of the build. Seems like a needed upgrade on a super high lift cam.

Depends who does yours and what they use. They are sleeved for both oil control and indexing. Mine were 1" O.D. and were done by one of the few old school people locally, there was always stuff in there from out of state. But I've NEVER heard of the block breaking in that area after this was done.

Now you have lol!

I have a 1972 hemi block where the lifter bore has 'let go'!
Bushed on one side to control oiling to the crank.

I assume these 72 blocks are factory replacements for the racer guys?

I was told by the seller its an ex Sox and Martin, but I see no stamps...
Painted a strange blue colour maybe Ford?

John

Just out of curiosity, How much lift gets us in the range of unshrouding the oil passage?
I didn't have any experience with bushing a stock block, but was interested in the bushings with the roller lifter guide built in so you didn't need a cross bar. Are these not a good idea on a factory street engine?

it depends on which lifter and which camshaft core base circle cam
i had one 1966 Street hemi block that unshrouded the driver side oil galley with a early set of solid roller lifters with the .750 diameter wheels on them, I'm not sure which brand they were but the cam was a old Crane SS cam with right at .500 lobe lift. The passenger side was good, so I block the left side galley off with a small welch plug and then had to add another one later in the car due to it turning sideways in the galley
the motor was in the car when we fired it up and one or two lifters were lifting high enough to make the oil pressure bounce around between 50 to 70 lbs. cold, that problem was a challenge to find and fix., trust me We had race that motor with a solid flat tappet cam before with no issues so we knew it was something we had changed, challenging me to figure out what was causing the oil pressure problem I got lucky on that one
Bushing the lifter bores first is way better to start with

Respectfully, I stand by my opinion that; done correctly, something else in the block will let-go long before the valley.

I've never seen a lifter bore blown out because of being bushed. If anything, I would think the bushing would reduce the likelihood of that. A flaw in the casting, crack, etc. might cause that.

The benefits far outweigh any possible downsides. And it is far better than using the tube in galley modification.

The only way i can think of that would break the block around the lifters is a rod or crank breaking
I've seen that

My mistake guys!

It’s the non bushed side that has “let go” maybe something got in there, when the rod broke doh

The 1972 426 hemi block is going into my Sox and Martin Duster clone.

It’s basically will be a ‘full size’ model kit clone lol...

HNY from Limey John

I agree. Lateral loads at the top of the lifter bore could be transferred through the base into the stronger section of the block, rather than just chunking the top of the bore off.

I used the Wendorf Machine DIY bushing kit on my street strip motor near on 7 years ago. Best trick to a stock block I've ever done. Even now I still have 65 psi cold & 40 psi stinking hot, thats pretty good after 7 years of abuse.

Wow Rebel, that is awesome!

Wydendorfmachine company has cracked it with that reamer kit...

I thought about this since seeing an industrial version at Tom Nelson race engines.
He was doing race hemi blocks for 2000hp twin turbo injected cars.

Think one was put into the silver Charger, “Maximus”...