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Looking to replace lifters and spings

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Old Apr 4, 2016 | 07:32 AM
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Default Looking to replace lifters and spings

Long story short, a lifter failed in my G8 GT. I'm making a parts list to get the car back up and running. I'll be replacing all the lifters, springs (they're only beehive springs), valve seals and inspecting the heads and anything else that's in the area. Push rods seem good. I might also get a ported intake manifold from Rick Crawford. Here's my list so far,

Lifters
link type morels? These appear to be the same size as stock? I don't want to deal with this issue again for quite some time. This car was supposed to be a daily driver. I want a reliable lifter, and I don't want to change the pushrods, someone already spent money on custom chromemoly PR's for the cam setup. As long as the cam is good, I'd rather just replace the lifters.
https://www.texas-speed.com/p-4814-t...ic-roller.aspx

Spring kit
Brian Tooley Racing .660" Lift Platinum Spring Kit with Titanium Retainers (GM LS Engines) [SK001] - $299.95$284.95 : MarylandSpeed.com- Your First Stop on the Way to Performance!

Head gaskets
Stock GM LS2/3 gaskets? Is there a certain LS engine gasket I should get for my 14psi max procharged engine that may be an upgrade?

RCR intake is a maybe, I was told the intake was stock.

Heads have a stage one port work with LS2 valves from Kaltech in NJ, with documentation. I'll be confirming this when I pull the heads.

Any other suggestions? Right now I'm planning on gathering parts as if only the lifter failed. I'm still pulling both heads to inspect things, I don't want to half *** a lifter replacement. If the cam failed, or something else drastically happened, I'll cross that bridge when I get there and find out.

Thanks guys!
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Old Apr 4, 2016 | 09:49 AM
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I like Morels the most. Much better design IMO compared to other popular brands, but probably overkill for a lot of builds. Here's a side by side of a Morel, Johnson, and LS7 lifter:

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With that said, lifters usually don't fail unless there is something funny going on with the valvetrain. Not enough spring pressure and/or too aggressive of a lobe is pretty common. The lifter lofts as it reaches peak lift and comes down hard on the lobe and the rollers fail.
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Old Apr 4, 2016 | 12:20 PM
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Thank you for posting.

Those Morel lifters are huge, I guess I'd need to get new push rods with those. I looked into the Johnson rollers to get familiar with them, and they're awfully expensive compared to LS7 lifters or even the "street" morel link lifters. They seem to be a good company, but for the price, I'd rather get morels, custom PR's and still save money.
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Old Apr 4, 2016 | 12:52 PM
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Originally Posted by K10Turbo
Thank you for posting.

Those Morel lifters are huge, I guess I'd need to get new push rods with those. I looked into the Johnson rollers to get familiar with them, and they're awfully expensive compared to LS7 lifters or even the "street" morel link lifters. They seem to be a good company, but for the price, I'd rather get morels, custom PR's and still save money.
I agree.

In that lifter, I think the pushrod cup height inside the lifter was pretty close to the others, the body is just taller so that you can run a lot of lift with the factory tray. It's probably not really a fair comparison as I think it's Morel's "race" style lifter next to Johnson's "street" lifter.
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Old Apr 4, 2016 | 12:58 PM
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Ahh, that would make more sense. Plus I think the link type morels have the bigger body due to having the body to have the provsions for the links to mount to. The actual body of the lifter could very well be the same as stock, and hence being able to reuse the PR's I have. Thanks, I'll look more into it. For now, I guess I have to find out if that's true. For all I know, I could already have them. I won't know until I tear apart the engine (I bought it modified already, it recently broke, just my luck).
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Old Apr 4, 2016 | 01:09 PM
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Originally Posted by K10Turbo
Ahh, that would make more sense. Plus I think the link type morels have the bigger body due to having the body to have the provsions for the links to mount to. The actual body of the lifter could very well be the same as stock, and hence being able to reuse the PR's I have. Thanks, I'll look more into it. For now, I guess I have to find out if that's true. For all I know, I could already have them. I won't know until I tear apart the engine (I bought it modified already, it recently broke, just my luck).
That Morel lifter in the picture (I think it's a 4708?) is longer so that you can use more lift. On larger lobe lift cams, the lifters fall down in their bore further when they come around to the base circle. We mocked up a .400" lobe lift cam this weekend and the Johnsons were almost coming out of the lifter tray when it was on the base circle. The taller Morel was still in the tray about 1/4".

Best of luck on the tear down. It sucks when **** breaks, especially something you just bought!
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Old Apr 4, 2016 | 01:13 PM
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I appreciate the advice and input, thank you. Hopefully when I have weekends freed up later this month I can bring the car to my buddy's garage and start taking it apart.
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