Ford lifters on an Iskendarian cam

[tubman]

After the threads on current adjustable lifters being soft and sometimes losing their adjustment, I am considering using stock Ford lifters with the new Max-1 cam in my current build. I looked through my stash, and I have a couple dozen Ford "pushrods" from engines (all 8BA's) I have disassembled. I have a couple of questions. First, is the Max-1 a regrind with a smaller lobe circle, thereby making the lifters too short? Would longer (Chevrolet) valves make up for this? Can I have my lifters refaced to allow them to be used with a new cam? Would my local automotive machine shop be able to reface the lifters, or is this a specialty process? If so, who would you engine builders recommend? If they can't be refaced, are new ones still available? I haven't committed to going this route, but I would like to hear the pro's and con's.

Thanks

[Jason in TX]

Pete on here refaces lifters and may be a valuable connection for you to make!

[Walt Dupont--Me.]

Well her is a few tips. (The length of lifters.) All the 8ba style Merc and the 51 -53 Ford lifters are 1.750 length. The early 8ba Ford have 1.720 length lifters. Now you see you a have.030 difference between the two lifters to play with. I butt grind all my engines so I'm not talking about adjustable lifters. I use Chevy valves with all performance cams. Now it depends on what your using for a cam, some have lower heels than others. Usually with a Max-1 cam and Chev valves you can use 1.720 lifters and butt grind some where around .012 off the stem. Usually with a hot cam with a low heel you can use the 1.750 lifters and do a little butt grinding. New stock lifters are almost imposable to find, a friend found a NOS set of the 1.750 two or three years ago, cain't remember where he got them. Give you something ponder over. Walt

[Pete]

A Max-1 ground on a genuine Ford core will be a regrind and the base circle will be smaller than stock.
A new Max-1 from Isky will be on an after market cast billet.
The base circle may or may not be the same as a stock cam.
Each cam grind is designed to a certain base circle and many times it is not the same as stock.
You may or may not be able to use the original valves with stock lifters. Chev valves are one way to get around the problem.
Stock lifters can be refaced by most automotive machine shops.
Just be sure they do NOT do them flat. They are tapered.
I can reface them if you can't get them done locally.
Adjstable lifters can be used but that will double your cost and cut engine longeviety.
I have reconditioned stock lifters also.

[Walt Dupont--Me.]

Your right Pete, I've used a lot on cams, some you have ground for me and use the 1.750 lifters and usually get by with them. I did have you weld up a set of valve stems for me. Where there is a will there a relative. Walt

[tubman]

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Thanks for the input. It sounds like this will work. The cam is a new Iskendarian that I bought about 20 years ago and has been sitting on the shelf. I will do some measuring, and if everything looks good, I will probably get in touch with you Pete, to have the lifters refaced. I got the whole kit with the cam, so maybe I can make up the cost by selling the (heavy) adjustable lifters that came with it.

[Bored&Stroked]

Good idea on getting rid of those solid 'Isky Slugs' that came in those kits. With just a bit of work, you can get the stock lifters setup and you'll have something that won't loosen and get noisy. Pete is your man for the work . . . buy him a 'martoooonie' if you ever get up his way - tell him Dale said so!

[GOSFAST]

Over the years building these Flatties we've sold trays & trays of the Johnson tappets and haven't experienced ONE bad lifter, ever!

Back in the late 80's and early 90's were were averaging 15 Flathead builds per year (many were supply parts and do all the machine work only) and cannot recall a "bad" lifter even back then.

Thanks, Gary in N.Y.

P.S. You can almost figure how many lifters we used/sold in that timeframe and I can tell you there are 96 tappets to one tray! We still use/sell the Johnson's but obviously not quite as many as in the past!

[barnfind08]

I have n.o.s 8BA lifters $3.00 ea.

[JWL]

From my personal experience I would suggest a careful examination of all lifters before installing. One set brought to me with exclamations of N.O.S. were not usable due to base surface condition and I had to re-grind before using them. I do not know where they came from and do not know how they were obtained but I do know the base was "flat" with an undesirable finish texture.

N.O.S. lifters, which are usable, at a price of $3 is a huge bargain.

[krackerjack1951]

wow..what a story I could tell about soft lifters..as a matter of fact I did tell the saga of "adjustable lifters " are all the same..the lifters came in isky box from Arizona...after the failure I sent one to Isky to ck for hardness,,"not our lifters" a complete tear down was next..i trusted a well known vendor..just more foreign junk.. "buyer beware"

[Pete]

NOS lifters are not recommended.
They are ground flat.
Ford decided it was cheaper to live with the failures than to install the machinery to do them right.

[Ross F-1]

Originally Posted by Pete

NOS lifters are not recommended.
They are ground flat.
Ford decided it was cheaper to live with the failures than to install the machinery to do them right.

What failures?

[tubman]

Originally Posted by Ross F-1

What failures?

I would like to know as well. Granted, I may not have as much experience and knowledge as some here, but I have never even heard of a stock Ford lifter failing or a cam going flat, and I have owned about a dozen flatheads in the last 55 years.

[Pete]

Originally Posted by tubman

I would like to know as well. Granted, I may not have as much experience and knowledge as some here, but I have never even heard of a stock Ford lifter failing or a cam going flat, and I have owned about a dozen flatheads in the last 55 years.

At one time, someone with nothing better to do figured I had ground over 100,000 cams in my lifetime so far.
I don't give a twit if it was 100 cams but at least 20% of those were flathead Fords. Of those, 20% had badly worn lobes. Many of those I tore down to regrind the cam. A worn lobe always had a cupped or galled lifter to match.
Cupped lifters were common even on lobes showing minimal wear. Primarily because of lifters being ground flat.
A dozen engines in 55 years??? Wow!
During the height of the flathead circle racing era in the
50's-60's we used to go through a dozen engines in a week, refacing or replacing lifters and regrinding cams.
The cams from the top 10 cars would only last 3 race programs. That's what it took to stay on top.

I have had a lot of people tell me they never heard of a lot of flathead cam failures but you can attribute that to media coverage of the time. Stuff like that did not sell newspapers.

[tubman]

I may not be a flathead cam expert, but I am pretty good at math. To have ground over 100,000 cams, you would have had to have ground 8 cams each day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year, for 50 years. If that's the case, congratulations. It makes me kinda wonder, though.

[JSeery]

I, for one, appreciate Pete sharing valuable experience and knowledge. I'm sure the numbers being thrown around are figures of speech, but either way the knowledge and experience is something that very few have and even less are willing to share.

[Pete]

Originally Posted by tubman

I may not be a flathead cam expert, but I am pretty good at math. To have ground over 100,000 cams, you would have had to have ground 8 cams each day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year, for 50 years. If that's the case, congratulations. It makes me kinda wonder, though.

In the olden dayz, I used to do 35 stock cams a day but that was generally a 4 day week because we took Friday off to get to the track.
I have been doing it for 60+ years.

[patmanta]

I'm waking this one back up and following along because I'm in a similar boat as @tubman with wanting to use the OE lifters and a Max-1. I'd like to know what the winning combination ends up being.

[tubman]

Originally Posted by patmanta

I'm waking this one back up and following along because I'm in a similar boat as @tubman with wanting to use the OE lifters and a Max-1. I'd like to know what the winning combination ends up being.

I purchased a set of NOS lifters from "Southside Obsolete". They look very good to me, but as far as I can see using a steel rule, they are perfectly flat, like "Pete" said. When I get back to Minnesota this spring, I will get together with my machinist to discuss this further. At the price, I couldn't pass up the lifters. In the end, I would really prefer to butt-grand the valves and use the stock lifters if at all possible.

No disrespect intended for anyone on here, I have never experienced, seen, or heard of a problem with flathead cams going flat. I can't believe it's a problem with material. I believe it merits further investigation, which I am going to be doing. It would be nice to hear from someone who has done this. I am thinking of bringing this topic up on the H.A.M.B. Someone there may have done this.