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The principal of a valve lifter is very simple. I didn't say the engineering behind making them well isn't complex. Like a ball bearing, they are a very simple basic machine but they are incredibly precise.
The engineering and quality is what's giving me pause with the $100 for 2 dozen of them.
They are good lifters and are OEM quality. Manufacturer makes them for several cars.
Till the cheap lifter has an incorrect rockwell hardness, and takes out one of more cam lobes. You will get exactly what you pay for when it comes to lifters.
When you've seen a new engine die from a lifter that shed material all through the engine, you take notice. When you've seen one builder have 100% of the engines he's built with them fail the same way, you sit back and watch.
Thanks for keeping us educated Jake. I am sure glad you don't just sit back and watch some of us make crucial mistakes without warning!
At times I have to. No one will listen unless they watch their buddy crash, and burn. People don't listen to the guy that has spent more than 1/4 of his life working with this one particular engine.
Till the cheap lifter has an incorrect rockwell hardness, and takes out one of more cam lobes. You will get exactly what you pay for when it comes to lifters.
When you've seen a new engine die from a lifter that shed material all through the engine, you take notice. When you've seen one builder have 100% of the engines he's built with them fail the same way, you sit back and watch.
I called the place that sells them and they say they are made by INA. I assume those are the standard good lifters? I should be receiving them on Wednesday so I'll post pictures.
They probably don't even know... Too many resellers of resold stuff that don't even know what they are selling these days... Because they don't use the stuff that they sell.
Well I received the lifters. From what I see the parts look good. They are identical to the INA lifters and come from a place called CNS Auto Parts based out of SoCal that imports parts from Ajusa, Bosch and others and offer a guarantee.
According to CNS auto parts http://www.cnsautoparts.com they only sell OEM quality parts. I received 32 lifters for about 120 dollars. The lifters look well made and I believe they are made by AJUSA which is an OEM supplier to Mercedes and VW. They are loaded with oil. Here are the pictures.
Macster and others are better metalurgists than me but the dull ,dark coloration of the INA lifter is a result of heat treatment(good). Bright and shiny is not .The rebuttal is - they are running in aluminum alloy so they don't need to be harder than mild steel. The oil film separates the lifter from the lifter carrier anyway.
I am not qualified to judge either way. That is why I bought 24 x INA lifters even though I found generic Interchange parts at a fraction of the cost.But I plan to keep my M96 a very long time.YEMV
Macster and others are better metalurgists than me but the dull ,dark coloration of the INA lifter is a result of heat treatment(good). Bright and shiny is not .The rebuttal is - they are running in aluminum alloy so they don't need to be harder than mild steel. The oil film separates the lifter from the lifter carrier anyway.
I am not qualified to judge either way. That is why I bought 24 x INA lifters even though I found generic Interchange parts at a fraction of the cost.But I plan to keep my M96 a very long time.YEMV
It is more than the metal and heat treatment it is the very special surface finish that has very slight depressions which help to lube the cam lobe as it wipes over the lifter face and pushes the lifter down.
While the valve spring is pretty light -- IIRC around 70psi with the valve on the seat -- when the lobe has fully depressed the lifter the spring pressure is I believe nearly double that, call it 150lbs. Given the narrow cam lobe and the very very thin line of contact (I estimate only 0.002" wide and this may be generous) and an approx. 1/2" wide cam lobe the surface area of the contact of the lobe against the lifter bucket face is just 0.001" and with an estimated 150lbs valve spring pressure with the valve fully open this works out to 150,000psi.
The cam lobe/lifter interface is not even pressure lubed but relies upon "splash" lube the lube that gets squeezed out from around the lifter bucket and runs down over the face of the lifter bucket. At higher RPMs they are lubed more by a heavy oil mist rather than by liquid oil.
These lifters look pretty simple/basic but they have a heck of a job to do and they do this under pretty harsh conditions. This is not the place to skimp on hardware for the sake of a few bucks.
02-20-2017, 02:50 AM
