vacuum at WOT

[Miles]

Cliff,
Thanks for the info. I  bought mine in October 2011, sounds like the same ones you had. I'll be pulling my engine and tearing it down when I get a chance. Just hope the metal didn't wipe the crank or cylinder walls. At the least I'll need bearings, cam, lifters, rockers and push rods.
Did you get the aluminium or the steel enduros?
Al

[Cliff Ruggles]

Steel Enduro's.

The only other full roller rocker arms we've used here w/o issues have been Harland Sharp or Crane Gold Race......

[Miles]

Cliff,
Are you using the OF shaft with the solids as that was the camshaft you already had in it when you had lifter troubles? If you were to start from scratch would you use the old faithful or a sollid roller camshaft?

[Cliff Ruggles]

Not having lifter troubles, they are rock solid now since 2009.  The problem was with the PRW stainless steel full roller rockers.

Every set we put in service now has failed on the roller tip end developing WAY too much clearance between the pins and rollers and putting a LOT of ground up metal into the assemblies......Cliff

[Miles]

I understand about the rockers and metal in the oil as that is what I now have, but I'm wondering if you chose the hydraulic cam and solid lifters as you already had the camshaft installed? Would you use a solid camshaft if you were starting over or is there an advantage using the OF camshaft with the solid roller lifters over a solid grind?
Al

[Cliff Ruggles]

The "hybrid" set-up works well on that cam because it is an older design.  Tight lashing the HIPPO solid roller lifters simply takes the hydraulic action out of the equation, pretty much like have a true anti pump-up hydraulic lifter in there.  It's a great set-up and trouble free now for many years, and the quietest valve train I've ever had on one of these engines.

I'd go this route again w/o hesitation.  It's a little bit of a PITA to lash the valves on my car as the wiper motor is in the way of removing the drivers side valve cover and getting in there to set the valves, but worth the extra effort.....IMHO......Cliff

[Miles]

Well I got mine apart and the metal came from a broken Comp Cams hydraulic roller lifter. The cup piece broke into five chunks and some chips, some of it going into the oil. I have marks on the crank, cylinders and pistons.
The PRW stainless roller rockers looked OK but I can feel the bearings grind if I hold the main shaft and spin the rocker around it.
Sigh!

[Miles]

Correction, I noticed the #2 exhaust rocker had made contact with the poly lock. I took two of them apart, both had considerable wear of the trunnion under the bearings even had bearing shaped imprints on the shaft. Rocker is stainless but the shaft is made of soft steel. No wonder yours filled your engine with metal. If they didn't want to use stainless for the trunnion they should have used a stainless inner race.

[Cliff Ruggles]

PRW kept the set I sent back and did admit problems with early units prior to 2010 or so. Even so we are still seeing problems with more recent units, if you do some Internet searching you'll see that quite a few folks are finding out about the pin to roller and bearing issues, etc.......Cliff

[Miles]

Hey Cliff, how long have you had the enduro rockers in the engine, running time? Are the trunnions [pivot shafts] stainless as well or just the rocker body?
Have you ever taken one out and tested the feel of the bearings by spinning the rocker arm around the pivot? Just wondering about the quality of the steel used for the trunnion, obviously the ones on mine were not high. I don't want to go through this again.
Thanks for all the info you've posted.

[Cliff Ruggles]

Mine were purchased and installed around 2009, then removed about 2 years ago and sent back to PRW.

Nothing wrong with them anyplace aside from the rollers and pins running thru them. Some of them had as much as .015" clearance, and ALL of them were worn some in that area.

Made sense to me and was the source of the fine ground up material I was getting on the oil pans magnetic drain plug.......Cliff

[Miles]

Cliff,
You said you set your lash a five thou. on your engine with the OF camshaft, Crower solid HIPPO lifters and the Crower SS full roller rockers. Is that your lash setting hot?

[Cliff Ruggles]

I set them at .005" dead cold.  They open up to about .008"/010", intake/exhaust respectively when fully warmed up......

[Miles]

Cliff,
I finally have the engine put together and spent the last two weeks building a test stand to run it on. I went with the Crower solid rollers and the Crower stainless roller rockers. Set them 5 thou cold and they were about 7-9 hot.
When checking hot, using stepped feelers, I noticed I could get a 7 thou in and push it right over the step onto the 9 thou, but when I put a 8-10 feeler there it wouldn't fit. I think the roller may be rolling right over the step and lifting the valve to get the 9 in. Think I'm nuts or is that possible. Is it better to set these from the side so the roller can't roll onto the feeler?

Do you have iron heads on your engine, just wondering if my aluminium heads would change hot to colt a great amount from iron?

[Cliff Ruggles]

I have aluminum heads on my engine.....Cliff