ROG100

Greg,
I assume from your statements that you DO use the VW lifters in your super engines - you double check them to find the best ones. I understand that and respect the reason why. You build high $ super engines that push the limits of all components. However most of us are mere mortals and drive ordinary 928's.
What happens to the bad ones if they were used in an engine - in my case I have bad ones in my engine according to your statistics - what can I expect to happen? When will my engines fail?
Roger

Lizard928

The 928 lifters are not perfectly flat, everyone I have ever checked had a tiny bit of a crown to it. Also the cams have a slight angle to them to ensure that they rotate. This ensures more even wear and longer life.

With regards to the lifters, I had asked Greg about this in the past. He wants to keep it private, I can understand that.
However the one thing I could see that might be different is if the center piece (which comes out), is milled to different heights there may not be enough material to "pump up" and run in an acceptable range.

GregBBRD

I'm not sure. I do a ton of work to these lifters to make them suitable to be installed in a high performance application. I take a "cheap" lifter and make it more expensive than an original Porsche 928 lifter. Remember, I'm running slightly increased spring pressures and turning my engines at higher rpms.

Remember, I'm trying to be on the "cutting edge" of technology for these engines....I need things to be very durable. There's been enough of these engines that either never ran or ran for very short periods of time. That needs to stop, as far as I'm concerned.

The VW lifters are not of the same quality as the original lifters....I think that is the point. You sometimes get what you pay for.

I think the lifters should work fine, in your application. I would think that any issues would show up at higher mileage.

If you are in direct contact with INA, I'd love to show you what problems I've run into, which makes many of these lifters not useful to me. Perhaps you could get some "feedback"....so far, I've been talking to deaf ears.

jeff spahn

Can I just drop my lifters in the ultrasonic cleaner and they'll be clean. I clean my bolts and other stuff with dawn and hot water in the ultrasonic cleaner. something tells me this is not what I should do to the lifters but I am asking for advice from those who would know the right answer.

GregBBRD

Don't do that. They need to be completely disassembled and have most of the oil already removed to ultrasonically clean them. The process is pretty involved.

Since you've not had an engine failure that put metal pieces into the oiling system, you don't need to clean them. Stick them back in the engine and forget them.

jpitman2

All this talk of hydraulic lifters reminds me of something I read recently, seeing as we all seem to be so used to every engine out there now using them.
I have a Subaru GT Turbo 2.5L flat four, twin cam 4 valve, giving 250Hp. I recently found a soft copy of its WSM, and idly reading through various gearbox (6speed, 4x4) and engine stuff, when I saw a section on valve clearance - they are set by shims, no hydraulics at all. Probably not enough width in the engine bay for deeper heads.
I know a couple of these engines up past the 100k mi mark, driven hard, no valve train noise at all.

jp 83 Euro S AT 53k

Mike Simard

Nothing wrong with mechanical shim adjusted lifters, you get to enjoy the shear zen of valve adjustment! It would be boring to not be able to do that and I even do that on hydraulic lifters which is a long story. Ahh, nothing like setting valves or multiple carbs.

It seems like only some Asian cars use mechanical lifters nowadays. Even nice engines like the latest BMW Ms use hydraulic.
I'd like to make some mechanical cams for a 928 but honestly, there's not a big enough advantage in it to recommend that.

Glenn M

Greg,
Thanks, I added swepco 502 a few hundred miles ago and will monitor the lifter noise.

Glenn M

Triumph and Jag have OHC engines with mechanical lifters. Sucks to have to remove the cams to replace shims. Also sucks th track shims down!

Cheers

James Bailey

As you might expect Greg B. has experience with the 944T "factory" Transam racer.....it has shims with a custom cam housing with windows to measure the valve clearance since it ran solid lifters. But everything else about that engine ended up being custom too. But that is how you make 650 HP out of 4 cylinders Greg has one of those cars in a bubble in his shop been there 20 Years or so !

the flyin' scotsman

Mechanical lifters have been used for many many years in high revving motorcycles; shim on and under bucket.

Suzuki and Yamaha had special tools that you leveraged under the cams to depress the bucket then with tweezers or suchlike remove the shim and replace with thicker/thinner as required.

Laverda used under bucket which required cam revomal to change the shims but it was very rare that they needed changing after the break in period.

H.....if you need lifters let me know

Bill Ball

Oh, do I know about shim on bucket: two Honda CBXs. Takes me a solid weekend to do the 24 valves on one. Huge collection of shims required (thank you eBay). That lever tool to depress the valve and a magnetic pickup to grab the shim. Then after getting all the clearances to spec, you can have some fun syncing 6 carbs.

the flyin' scotsman

I know your pain Bill.....never owned one but worked on a few CBXs.....one with a bent rod which meant engine out and total strip......makes a 928 seem quite simple

For those who aren't famaliar:
Honda CBX motorcycle, 1000cc straight 6 across the frame with 4 valves/cylinder, 4 cams and 6 carbs......it actually wasnt to bad to work on just lots of everything.

blown 87

Get Paul Hunt to tell you guys about building a Mustang motor, no not the Ford one, but the V12 one, now that is a complex motor, full of gears and all kinds of thinks, forked rods, and true industrial art.

You can see the Forked rods in a couple of these pics.







And just in case you ever need a 8,000 HP Margarita Mixer.

jeff spahn

Great picture. Shows we do know how to make things in America (or did anyway)