Collapsed Lifter? Yes or No
 

I finally came around and took out 2 lifters off the car. And this is what I came to figure out after comparing them to another older set I had.

New ones: Comp Cams (not the Comp R). Have been sitting around for 2 months inside the engine. Engine was drained of its oil about 3 weeks ago.

Old ones: Stock Gm lifters with 150k miles on them. They worked perfectly before the rebuild.

I took a pushrod out and inserted the pushrod against the lifter. I pushed the pushrod against the lifter and the "plunger" sinks about 1/2 inch on some. This is with minimal force. All of the new Comp lifters do this.

On the stock older GM lifters, I tried to do the same thing and "nada". The plunger will not give a centimeter no matter how much force I could muster in against them.

Should the plunger in the lifter sink down like that, is this a good way to tell if a lifter is collapsed?

I can't imagine how I would ever get valve lash correct if the plunger sinks down with minimal force.

Any ideas?

Your help is very Appreciated.

ttt for ya,
and It would seem odd that all of them would do that if that means they are collapsed?

I couldnt make my stock lifters go down. But when I replaced one of them with a NAPA auto parts lifter, it went down with ease, like ur COMP's do.

Is this the only reason why you think that you have a collapsed lifter?

Because I do know that lifters need to prime first. So maybe once they fill up with oil, the can be pushed down?

I wouldnt keep the stocks regardless. I had one collapse on my car not to long ago, and it ended up causing a bent valve. Cost me some big money. But Im going do be doing heads and cam, so they will all come out. So I wont have to worry about this. I also had a friend have 2 lifters go out and eat his cam up bad. Both of our cars had less then 80k on them.