Had a noisy lifter. I was driving from College Station, Texas, to Fort Worth this weekend. I'll be leaving my rover in Fort Worth. Wish I had a digital camera to show the damaged cam lobe and lifter . The lifter was really tapping in Waco (sounded collapsed) I drove from Waco to Fort Worth (100 miles) on seven cylinders. Isolated the noise to the DS of the engine pulled the valve cover and I could move the push rod on number 5 exhaust up and down and hear an "oil squishing out of the lifter sound". Bought a set of new lifters(buick replacements for $45) and gaskets. pulled the intake this morining and discovered that I'm going to need a new cam. completeley flaton number 5 exhaust. The lifter is so dished in that it wore completely through and oil was squirting through the bottom of the lifter. The sad part is that these were the "high dollar" lifters and cam set from Crane and only have about 25K on them. All the other lifters look ok. Any body have experience with PIPER Cams? Does ECR sell them? Seems I've heard they do. Any other cams besides Crane, Crower, Piper? Oh, yeah the engine is a 4.2L.
I'll say I wasn't to impressed with the performance of the crane. I'm betting these cams were really designed with carb motors in mind and really don't optimize the performance in an EFI motor. I believe pipers are made for EFI rover motors, right?

If you are slightly interested in what Crower offers, go to www.aluminumv8.com find the phone number, call the guy up and ask what he recommends for an EFI Rover of your displacement, and whether the Crower cams will jive with the EFI.



BTW, do you use synthetic oil?

yep, I use synthetic in everything. I just compared my crane spec card against the piper. looks to be the same same except the piper has a little more lift on the intake valve. thanks for the info on the crower cam vendor. I'll give him a call tommorrow. You think I should give crane a call and ask them what the hell? It had to have been some kind of defect for that one lifter to fail like that.

Synthetic oil lacks zinc. Zinc is an anti-scuff agent and is very helpful at reducing metal-to-metal wear, such as between the cam and lifters.

Synthetics lack zinc due to a supposed problem with zinc cooking catalytic converters (however, I don't know the whole truth behind this claim); even a new car has a little blow-by and a miniscule amout of oil is still burned. I'll repeat this...synthetics lack zinc...I've seen spec sheets from Mobil 1 to Castrol (which is not a true synth) to Amsoil...they all lack zinc.

Almost all dino oil still contains zinc. RPi recommends Valvoline Race on their hi-po engines...non-surprisingly, Valvoline Race has the highest zinc content of any dino oil I've seen. Rotella T also has a fair amount of zinc (which I use since it is cheap and comes in 1-gallon containers).

Obviously, we're not running huge pressures at the valve seat or over the nose of the cam, but every bit helps. If you are going to continue running synth, at least break the new cam in with dino for the first 1000 miles or so...this certainly is a crucial period to ensure the cam and lifters work-harden appropriately, and a likely time for a lobe to go flat. Keep in mind, no matter how new the engine is, it's still a 40-year old design.



BTW, let Crane know. Be civil about it because cams going flat isn't a new trend. Inform Crane of the application, that it is very mild, high RPMs are not experienced, and the valve-spring pressure is relatively low (e.g. not high-performance). Mention that you would expect this risk in a hi-po V8 application, but experiencing this in such a low-performance application baffles you (be best to border more on the bewildered side than the "I expect reimbursement" POV).

when i used to run a V8, i rebuilt an old 3.5 carb with a pipercross fast road/rally 270/275 profile cam. this was pretty good. it still kept good low end torque, but let the (asthmatic) engine rev to a good 6500rpm.
the rest of the lump sounded like it was going to implode, but it revved well!! :D

I ran dino oil for a good 8k in this engine to break it in. On my BMW Motorcycle they say not to use synthetic until 12k because that's when it's finally broken in!
On calling crane about the lifter... I'll kill them with kindness first and if that doesn't work I'll unleash the dogs...

I have the Crane "RV" grind... (4.2 in 3.9)

No problems, actually seems to come on real well at 4k, but I really never get it above that. (automatic you know).

I just don't like to chance breaking shiat at 5500 rpm in first gear, actually, come to think of it, I limit my self to 3k off-road, and about 4500 on.....

j

I got a buddy who is running the 4.2 top/4.6 bottom end wtih an Energizer camshaft and a blower. He has no complaints that I know of. I'll ask him again specifically to see if anything has come up.

Originally posted by alia176
I got a buddy who is running the 4.2 top/4.6 bottom end wtih an Energizer camshaft and a blower. He has no complaints that I know of. I'll ask him again specifically to see if anything has come up.


I'm willing to bet those two are little more related than the camshaft...

ordered the Crower 50230 from D&D, recomended by them. This cam looks kind of racy from the specs. 260 Duration, .446" Lift on the intake, .451" lift on exhaust. Like the power range of 1500-4000RPM. Cam arrives on Thursday just in time for the 4th. Guess what I'm doing on the 4th... I'll post the results after the install.

Definitely keep us posted on how it turns out. Glad those folks at D&D were helpful!

I have been running a Crane cam and lifters for two years and love it...but not sure off the top of my head which one it is...

I had a 4.0 Disco motor and Disco tranny put in my '88 rangie (along with some misc other engine mods) and for a Rover, it really moves...

I know of 4-5 other people running the same or similar cam and none of them have had any complaints...

Dave