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Purple shaft lifter issues?

I bought a NOS MOPAR set of late 70s hydraulic lifters 6 months ago on eBay, paid $10 a lifter, but I know they’re good. You might find what you’re looking for there. Also might take a while.
 
Dwayne Porter at Porter Racing Heads. He is the best IMO as I run a solid flat tappet cam he did for me. Its a solid flat tappet that he had Nitrided (hardened) and he sent me the EDM solid lifters with the tiny hole in the bottom that puts oil on the cam lobe from the hole in the bottom of the lifter. The cam he made for my eng is .585 & .592 lift thats 264 & 270 @ .050 with a 110 LSA. That cam has been in my 63 since June 2011 and its still going strong as I just adjusted the valves a month or so ago and all was still perfect. He post on he so maybe he will chime in and if not I can give you phone # or goggle Porter Racing Heads. Good luck what ever you decide. Ron
 
I bought a 292/509 hydraulic MP cam kit and it destroyed itself on break in. Took out the rest of the rotating assembly as well. Another friend had the same experience. I would never trust another MP cam. I stepped up to a hydraulic roller when I rebuilt that engine. I recently got a vintage set of Johnson lifters from Kim which I used on a white box cam and everything was fine.
 
The last .590 MP camshaft we removed had extreme amounts of wear on one lobe in less than 1,000-miles. When installing a normal, run-of-the-mill hydraulic flat-tappet Summit Racing camshaft into our 318 LA engine, the lifters shipped were absolute junk, we shipped them back for a credit and ordered lifters directly from Lunati. The pushrods I ordered from Comp Cams, same ordeal, had a pushrod ball, literally broken off in the box! We threw those away, and re-used the 40-year old OEM pushrods.

With the 470" low-deck, we went with a Lunati VooDoo Camshaft (which were developed by Harold Brookshire of Ultradyne) that has been excellent (asymmetrical lobes, fast opening - slow closing of the valve) and 3/8", .145 wall pushrods from Steward Performance. This is by far, the best camshaft we've had to date.

Over the last ten years, we've ran the .509 MP, .528 MP, and (TWO) .590 MP camshafts (and a few other Comp Cams). We went with a Lunati VooDoo grind similar to the .528 MP that was substantially better in our turbo build (we actually had that camshaft nitrided). All of these camshafts, other than the last Lunati, had significant wear in under 5,000-miles. The worst camshaft was the Comp XE285HL in terms of lobe wear.

IMHO, it's the lifters at fault. It all comes down to the lifter quality which is sub-standard at best.

Also, take into consideration the break-in process. Don't skimp out on the dedicated break-in oil (AMSOIL) & use a NAPA Gold / WIX oil filter. We even soak the valve springs, pushrods, and rocker arms in Comp Cam valvetrain assembly spray, and generously lube the camshaft & lifters. The most critical part is the initial break-in, this is where you need all the anti-wear additives that dedicated engine break-in oil or conventional oils like VR-1 provide within the first 500-miles. Oil filter needs to be swapped after 15-minutes of runtime, break-in oil can be ran for the first 500-miles. After the break-in period is over, choose a good synthetic oil, from companies like Rotella (15W40) or Mobil 1 (10W40 / 15W50). Do not add additional oil additives.

Engine Masters recently lost a flat-tappet camshaft on the dyno. It can happen to anyone, and is all too common anymore.
 
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