Lifter Break in

[Morris]

I installed new lifters for my old cam (which measured out to spec). What are best practices for breaking in the new lifters?

 

[jlaird]

Just run it. If it was a new cam as well I would say run 20 min at 2K however.............

 

[RJA]

Morris,

Be sure to use an oil with lots of ZDDP such as Valvoline VR1 Racing oil. After breaking in, drain oil and replace with Valvoline 20/50 or your regular oil.

Jerry Anderson
Hendrix Wire Wheel

 

[RonMacPherson]

If you haven't started it yet. Pull the lifters again and get some engine assembly lube. Just about every good auto parts store carries it, or GM or Porsche dealers do also.

Smear the bottom and lower lips of the lifters, if you can get to the cam, the lobes also.

Reassemble, Use a good ZDDP oil for first fill. Shell Rotella diesel is good.

After you fire it up, if you do not have any leaks(if so shut off and fix the leaks) run it at an ultra fast idle(appx. 2000 for a good 10-15 minutes. Drain the oil and filter, after it cools down, reset your valves, fill with the oil you're going to use and drive it.

 

[John Moore]

Morris,

Be sure to use an oil with lots of ZDDP such as Valvoline VR1 Racing oil. After breaking in, drain oil and replace with Valvoline 20/50 or your regular oil.

Jerry Anderson
Hendrix Wire Wheel

X2!

 

[kcbugeye1275]

When you restart a motor after you have had it apart, roll the starter till you get oil pressure. Pull the plugs, and when you have oil pressure, reinstall the plugs, and worry about everything else. Rotella is what I have used, for 500 miles, then change just to get the debree out.

 

[jlaird]

I may never get to 500 miles but up to 205 now and it has only been 4 or 5 months and one oil change.

 

[dklawson]

As stated above, make sure to use assembly lube during your rebuild.

For the break-in oil (and making sure you have ZDDP) there is an alternative. Though I never thought I'd find myself saying this, add one bottle of the "red" STP to your break-in oil. It contains the ZDDP and of course, you'll be changing the oil soon anyway. (Red bottle STP is thinner and formulated for 4-cylinder engines while the blue bottle's contents are thicker and for bigger engines. Both contain ZDDP).

 

[Morris]

I did use assembly lube... ages ago when I assembled the thing. I had about a third of a bottle of the red STP. Apparently it is no longer available in my town. I mixed it with blue STP to make a full bottle and used 10w-40 oil (I normally use 20-50). When I filled the oil, I removed the valve cover, and poured it down all the galleys. Once filled, I used a cordless drill to turn my oil pump until I got 60 psi oil pressure. Finally, I cranked the starter a lot before it finally started. That wasn't on purpose, though.

 

[John Moore]

One of my mechanic friends uses STP and motor oil. From what I understand STP has ZDDP. (zinc) Last time I rebuilt my engine I really had to turn it over for what seemed like an eternity with my starter before I got oil pressure. But finally I was good! I'm sure you'll be fine!

 

[Morris]

Thanks for all the good advice, BTW.

 

[Hap Waldrop]

Alot of good advice has been given about lubes and first time starting procedures, so I won't talk about that, what I will talk about is lifter and cam quality. The solid lifters and cams we run in our cars need to be hardened and of the best quailty, one of the most common failures we see in our solid lifter engines are lifter and cam failure, most of the time, not that long after a engine is rebuilt. Regrinding your stock cam core or buying reground stock cam core is only a option if the cam has been properly hardened after it has been reground, many on the market are NOT. The most common used hardening procedure for a reground cam is nitriting, nitriting is surface hardening procedure that penetrates the surface aprox. .030", do not let anyone tell you Parkerizing is a acceptable hardening procedure, it is not, of course buying a billet cam is always the best way to go, but if a used reground cam core is nitrited after grinding I can tell firsthand you after years of using such units in race engines this is more than acceptable. Now on to lifters, I tested of bunch of lifters for A-series and MGB engine (A-series and MGB short lifter are one in the same) a few years back. I tested the Isky copy chilled iron lifters, Mini Spares lighten lifters and APT CF-04 lifters and stock replacment lifter, what I was looking for was a Rockewell C rating of mid 50s or higher, this is what we need to insure long lifter life in our engines, and the stock factory lifters were of this quality, the stock repalcement lifter was the only one of the bunch that failed the test, and it did so horribly, at Rockwell C ratings of 45-47, the APT, Chilled iron Isky type and MS lightend lifters all came in at 56 Rockwell C or higher, with APT CF-O4 lifter winning with a Rockwell C rating of 61. In all the engines I build I only used either reground nitrited cams or new billit cams, on the street engines I use APT cams, on the MGBs, David Anton can not get a reilable source of used cam cores on a constant basis, so I go with new billets, on A-series engines, he can get reliable cores from the A+ engine from the UK, which are nitrited after being reground and require switching to the later slot drive oil pump which will work in any of the A-series engines, then I also use his APT CF-04 lifters. This is not the cheapest approach, but if a cheap cam and/or lifters fail because you took the low road, then this path is by far the cheapest route.