EZ Rollmax lifter unhappy

I have a friend who I talked into using a set of 3472 ez rollmax lifters in his street car. RB block bushed lifter bores, large feed hole bored into bushings.Nothing crazy for springs PSI 1224 springs.
He had called me during the summer to say he has had to set the lash a couple of times.Which is really strange because the same set up with other guys with almost the same set up except with a std unbushed roller lifter go a couple of summers without taking off a valve cover.
He tells me he only has 1500 miles on these new lifters.The only thing different between him and everyone else is he has not changed the oil since the lifters were put in.
His old red zone lifters had over 5000 miles on them with 5000 miles of hard driving and lots of oil changes (over 12 changes) and to be safe we figured send them back for a rebuild.
Long story short the bushings are worn on every lifter.Has anyone seen this before??

Let's face it, steel is harder than bronze. While the bronze bushed lifters may be fine in a race motor that see's no more than hundred or so hours of run time per year, a street motor is a totally different animal. You may not like the thought of a roller lifter going south in your motor BUT look at all the factory roller motors out there right now - they ALL use steel bearing rollers. That says something about reliability.

You are correct that all oem are a needle bearing roller. I think something else to consider however is they are all also hydraulic and not solid lifter so not subjected to the same shock loads.

Not sure on your issue. Would be curious what lifter to bore clearance is. I've read that that brand can have a bit of an undersize/taper at times.

I use a different type non needle bearing lifter on mine and with the unbushed lifter bores needed to have a specific base circle and max lift as to not uncover the oil passage. Just something to consider as I'm not sure how big "large feed hole" is.

You mentioned the oil was'nt changed.

Word on the street is bushed roller lifters are super fussy about having clean oil - it must be replaced sooner than a normal deal.

Dirty oil and bushed rollers supposedly don't jive well.

Yes, I know of one and he'll likely share the exact details, it was DVW. He had a single lifter go away quick. Sent that one? or ALL them back and ISKY repaired or replaced just the one from my recall. Same spring loads. I know he mapped the axle pressure feed circuit and it showed the feed hole was below or nearly below the bore. Obviously a bushing would want full time pressure, and that might be something you'd want to check.

My first thought would be that the lifters may want a high zinc oil since there are sliding contact surfaces vs. rolling. Contact stresses are way down compared to a needle roller and should see wear unless something is way out of whack. Another thought would be if the oil is not getting to the roller. And that can open up another subject and can of worms.

Even though there is a lifter bushing with a oil hole, if you are using a mopar bodies lifter meant for a stock bore you may be restricting or cutting off the oil supply to the roller. Typically with a bushed bore, you would use a chevy style bodies .903 lifter with an oil band to catch the oil from the oil feed from the oil bushing and supply the bushing on the roller lifter.

AG.

https://board.moparts.org/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/2427893/1.html

As a follow up to that thread.......

There were no problems with the upgraded replacement lifters on that build.

I was contacted by someone who had used the same type of lifters as the ones we had problems with, and they had no problems.
He made it a point to tell me he had gone with the “ez-max” bearing material.

The replacement lifters I got had the ez-max bearings....... and the pressurized edm oiling option.

Thanks for the replies and the link..
I don't think oil supply is the whole problem.This is the second summer that the lifters have been in the engine.I would think if supply was the whole problem the lifters would have given trouble in the first 500 - 750 miles.He didn't call until the valve train started to make noise.
Once he drops of the engine and I take it apart I'll have a better idea of what went on.
I just feel bad because I talked him into these supposedly end all be all roller lifters.I guess it's best to stick with what knowingly works.

Though mine is track only I'll share what I know. I run the same Pac 1224 spring in at 1.950". 285/292/.471 lobe cam with 1.7 rockers. The lifters are Isky Red-Zone bushed. For the first 500 passes the lifter bushings were pretty loose .0025"-.003". Now they are just under .0015". It originally hurt one intake tappet at about 60 passes. Sent them all back to Isky. They repaired it for free. Said the rest were fine. That was 600 passes ago. It runs 5w25 JR 1 synthetic oil. It gets changed once a year. Roughly 100 passses. I keep a lash log book. Lash is checked at about 25 passes. Each valve is noted if it's loose or tight. Seldom are there more than 2 that have moved .001". Sometimes one will measure tight at one check. Than loose the next. But never has any of them had a consistant pattern of getting loose or tight for that matter. I can say until the lifter bushings were replaced the roller axle oil feed hole was about .045" below the bottom of the lifter bushing. This time we used longer bushings so the axle has constant pressure. Though it showed no ill effects from being run that way for 500 passes

dvw...
Thank you sir...Great info

Thanks for retrieving the old thread Dwayne. Almost 2? years ago I called over to Isky and Richard got on the phone. We reviewed the 3 different sets of "BBChevy" lifters I had on hand, he was reasonable to talk with. Some bodies are now obsolete. Since then I sent one set in that I had them swap the captured link bars over to BBMopar, i can tell you that my experience was GOOD. These are bearing-style .937/.850 wheel, PR oil, offset intakes and I'm about to see how they package in my KB block. But the old thread is relevant in identifying one of many issues here for posterity.

I will add in the event it may not have been covered, ONE reason DVW swapped to the ISKY lifter is his older "COMP" lifters were forking at the wheel. From my recall, he had about the same spring load but a different spring which was a tick over 300 seat and over 800 open for posterity. The forking occurred some time after a short number of runs too 150ish IIRC. His was not the first set of Comps I've seen do this at these loads.