LS7 lifter collapsed yet again...
LS7 lifter collapsed yet again... This is the second time a lifter has failed.....here are the details to my build.
07 Silverado 4.8 with 243 Heads.
- Comp Cam 228/228 .588/.588 114LSA
- .650" Dual Valve Spring
- Texas Speed 7.40 Chromemoly Pushrod
- GM LS7 Lifters
- TSP Trunion LS1 Rockers
- TSP 1-3/4" Stainless Headers
- FTI 2600 stall converter
First time thinking withing the first 100 miles a lifter actually separated and the roller ended up at the bottom of my oil pan along with needle bearings and more metal. That was on exhaust side of cylinder 8. Pulled the motor honed all cylinders, re-ringed piston with seal power rings, pulled caps inspected all seals/bearings, ARP studded bottom end, ARP connecting rod bolts. New oil pump all new gaskets, installed new cam, new lifter. Everything was good, tuned on the dyno, and around 3k on the rebuild heading to the grocery store......noticed a sudden loss of power and loud ticking....right away assumed another lifter. Pulled valve covers on drives side, nothing out of the ordinary, pulled passenger side, and cylinder 2 intake side rocker arm I could move it up and down.....it was correctly torqued at the moment too. I had a nice gap to put my finger in between the pushrod and rocker....so that tells me yet again lifter failure.....my question is, why and how is this happening? I'm in the process of getting ahold of TSP. Any information will be helpful, thank you.
07 Silverado 4.8 with 243 Heads.
- Comp Cam 228/228 .588/.588 114LSA
- .650" Dual Valve Spring
- Texas Speed 7.40 Chromemoly Pushrod
- GM LS7 Lifters
- TSP Trunion LS1 Rockers
- TSP 1-3/4" Stainless Headers
- FTI 2600 stall converter
First time thinking withing the first 100 miles a lifter actually separated and the roller ended up at the bottom of my oil pan along with needle bearings and more metal. That was on exhaust side of cylinder 8. Pulled the motor honed all cylinders, re-ringed piston with seal power rings, pulled caps inspected all seals/bearings, ARP studded bottom end, ARP connecting rod bolts. New oil pump all new gaskets, installed new cam, new lifter. Everything was good, tuned on the dyno, and around 3k on the rebuild heading to the grocery store......noticed a sudden loss of power and loud ticking....right away assumed another lifter. Pulled valve covers on drives side, nothing out of the ordinary, pulled passenger side, and cylinder 2 intake side rocker arm I could move it up and down.....it was correctly torqued at the moment too. I had a nice gap to put my finger in between the pushrod and rocker....so that tells me yet again lifter failure.....my question is, why and how is this happening? I'm in the process of getting ahold of TSP. Any information will be helpful, thank you.
Banned
Joined: Mar 2013
Posts: 1,137
Likes: 2
From: Studewood/Acres-Homes TX.
That is truely sad.... To get all my parts built is $1725.oo for the short block and $1749.oo
for the long-block & dyno.. and I bought every part. To have a lifter kill you is crazy... not once but twice... I choose a solid roller set-up with- OUT bearings as this does happen with all or most lifter designs..... BEARING FAILURE.
I would have bought a better lifters after the 1st problem..Comp cams, Lunat!, or Johnson short-travel lifter. Better products but these lifters also have bearings ...Get with Mr. TOOLEY about it...
2 Have spend on this again I would talk to 1 of the best..
for the long-block & dyno.. and I bought every part. To have a lifter kill you is crazy... not once but twice... I choose a solid roller set-up with- OUT bearings as this does happen with all or most lifter designs..... BEARING FAILURE.
I would have bought a better lifters after the 1st problem..Comp cams, Lunat!, or Johnson short-travel lifter. Better products but these lifters also have bearings ...Get with Mr. TOOLEY about it...
2 Have spend on this again I would talk to 1 of the best..
Last edited by lil john; Jul 20, 2014 at 01:24 PM.
Thank you for the replys. TSP really didn't know why and offered up a whole new set of whatever choice of lifters. I still have yet to tear the head off.......procrastinating and a lot of rain here in South GA. I'm hoping it didn't ruin the cam lobe...but more than likely did....more to come. As for pushrod length everything was measured correctly and TSP said if they were too long you would notice right away engine noise same with if too short.....not 3k miles later. For springs I thought so too but EFI Alchemy recommended duals and TSp said those will work just fine, but here are the specs for the springs;
Close: 144lb@1.810" installed height
Open: 402lb@.600"
Open: 425lb@.650"
Max Lift: .650"
Spring Rate: 469lbs/in
Close: 144lb@1.810" installed height
Open: 402lb@.600"
Open: 425lb@.650"
Max Lift: .650"
Spring Rate: 469lbs/in
Trending Topics
Oh it hurts reading this. I had a low mileage Lunati link bar lifter (same one as the Morel low end) fail and I'm in the process of rebuilding the whole engine too. The end looks like your second picture, Witness marks show the pin came out of the roller and snapped it off on the upstroke. The failure (just starting the car) took out the cam, cam position sensor, an opposing lifter, 9 valves and 5 dinged pistons (2 pretty good) along with needing the block worked to fix the lifter bores. High end lifters are out of my budget and the affordable choices all seem to have a poor failure rates. 
Last edited by svede1212; Jul 23, 2014 at 11:47 AM.
LS1 Tech Stories
The Best V8 Stories One Small Block at Time
Gas Monkey Built a 6-Wheel Ferrari Testarossa With a Corvette LT4 Engine
Verdad Gallardo
7 Most Reliable High-Performance Engines GM Has Ever Built
Verdad Gallardo
Amazing '71 Camaro Restomod Is Modern Muscle Car Under the Skin
Verdad Gallardo
6 Common C5 Corvette Failures and What's Involved In Repairing Them
Pouria Savadkouei
Retro Modern Bandit Pontiac Trans AM Comes With Burt Reynolds' Autograph
Verdad Gallardo
Top 10 Greatest Cadillac V Series Performance Models Ever, Ranked
Pouria Savadkouei
Top 10 Most Powerful Chevy Trucks Ever Made!
Hennessey's New Supercharged Silverado ZR2 Has 700 HP
Verdad Gallardo
Coachbuilt N2A Anteros Is an LS2-Powered C6 Corvette In Italian Clothes
Verdad Gallardo
402lb over the nose is not a lot of spring pressure in my opinion with this set-up. Not enough to be killing lifters.
I'd recommend a Morel 5315 or a Morel link bar 5290.
Did you use a push rod length checker to find zero lash during the installment of the camshaft?
I'd recommend a Morel 5315 or a Morel link bar 5290.
Did you use a push rod length checker to find zero lash during the installment of the camshaft?
Update!!!! So tonight I finally got off my *** and pulled the head lol.....guess what I found?! Looks like the lifter may have somehow spun 90° in the lifter tray because I pulled the tray lifter was 90° and some pretty good wear in the tray......and now I cannot pull out the lifter.....I stuck a camera down below and the cam lobe is messed up....any ideas to pull out the lifter? Otherwise I'm gonna pull the cam and have the lifter fall through....
Many of these failures sound like installation issues. When your beating up bearings and rollers are popping off something is wrong. To do it 1 time maybe you had a defective part, but to do it 2 times its more likely than not an installation issue. I would measure all 16 pushrod holes for proper pushrod length. The springs are just fine for that cam if they are installed at a respectable install height and how old are the springs? I would install those springs around 1.73" to avoid spring surge. Always use new lifter trays when doing a new build, unless you have link bars, which delete them.
Update!!! So I pulled the other head off and cam out.....had to drop the lifter through the block since I was unable to just pull the lifter straight out. The first picture is of the lifter today....The second picture is both of the lifters...to remind you the 1st incident was exhaust side cylinder 8. 2nd was intake side cylinder 2. Everything was pre-measured no shortcuts were taken the 2nd time around since I had pulled the block.....Texas Speed did verify the picture of the lifter the 1st incident and indeed said it was a faulty part. Now looking at both of them together......looks identical. So as far as this happening a 2nd time and it is more than likely and installation failure....I highly doubt.....TSP will review the pictures of this tomorrow.
So I pulled the other head off and cam out.....had to drop the lifter through the block since I was unable to just pull the lifter straight out. The first picture is of the lifter today....The second picture is both of the lifters...to remind you the 1st incident was exhaust side cylinder 8. 2nd was intake side cylinder 2. Everything was pre-measured no shortcuts were taken the 2nd time around since I had pulled the block.....Texas Speed did verify the picture of the lifter the 1st incident and indeed said it was a faulty part. Now looking at both of them together......looks identical. So as far as this happening a 2nd time and it is more than likely and installation failure....I highly doubt.....TSP will review the pictures of this tomorrow.
Not that I know of. The tray didn't have signs of it doing that either. This second time same way, just a little wear but not enough to show it spun....still awaiting a response from TSP
Texas Speed sent me this.... Hi Trevor
Sorry to hear this happened again, but I would seriously take a look at the preload and the overall install. I'm confident that we don't have a bad batch as I haven't had a problem with any other lifter in the past few months.
I'm even hesitant to send out another lifter and discounted cam at this point due to the fact if we don't find what is causing this it is going to happen again.
Again, yours are the only lifter failures I have heard about in the past few months. Keeping in mind we go through thousands of these every month. I would even go as far as saying I have only heard of 1 other failure this year. It is very very unlikely that you had 2 go bad, there has to be some sort of install issue.
If I can reasonably help, I will, but we need to find the problem first.
Dominic
Sorry to hear this happened again, but I would seriously take a look at the preload and the overall install. I'm confident that we don't have a bad batch as I haven't had a problem with any other lifter in the past few months.
I'm even hesitant to send out another lifter and discounted cam at this point due to the fact if we don't find what is causing this it is going to happen again.
Again, yours are the only lifter failures I have heard about in the past few months. Keeping in mind we go through thousands of these every month. I would even go as far as saying I have only heard of 1 other failure this year. It is very very unlikely that you had 2 go bad, there has to be some sort of install issue.
If I can reasonably help, I will, but we need to find the problem first.
Dominic
If you keep the motor for a long period at higher rpm while lets say making a massive burnout you can have valve float and stress the lifter to failure
Aggressive ramp rates or a bad grind can be the cause
Or if you have a stick car making 5th to 2nd gear down shifts as the excessive rpm acceleration will cause problems
I would look at the cam grind as i too dont think this is a ls7 lifter problem if the above dose not apply to what you have been doing
Aggressive ramp rates or a bad grind can be the cause
Or if you have a stick car making 5th to 2nd gear down shifts as the excessive rpm acceleration will cause problems
I would look at the cam grind as i too dont think this is a ls7 lifter problem if the above dose not apply to what you have been doing
Last edited by Ari G; Aug 13, 2014 at 07:32 PM.
