More awesomeness from COMP CAMS! They installed TWO retaining clips on one of my lifters as seen in the first picture (and they are the weak ones at that) !!! HAHAHAHAHHAHAH. How will a Pro-Comp Cam person explain that one? Looks like the plunger is sitting much farther down as a result since the clips are all jamed and bound up. I will have to agree that is pure quality there.

The other lifter has a cracked retainer, big suprise there.

So, I hope my lifter tick is somehow due to one of these two lifters which were both in the area of the noise.

Again, I dont know how slightly over-preloading them causes the clip to break as seen in the second picture, but whatever.

Comp Cams suck either way. Why use these when you can have extra insurance using others? Basically from everything I've read if you use Comp Cams and they dont break, your lucky. Simple as that.

Seems like the last thing you'd want to do when your lifters weight in at 123 grams, shave 1.5grams off by sacrificing reliability. Ah well at least we know what the problems with the 875-16's are.

Comp Cams 875-16 R Pro Mag Lifter: 121.67g
GM Perf Parts GM# 12371042: 123.19g
Difference of 1.52grams

Comp Cams Double Clip Lifter !! (must be for extra strength incase one breaks? But only one of my 16 lifters have the double clip. What a joke):


Comp Cams Broken single Clip Lifter (Hey where's my extra clip on the other 15 lifters? Not sure how they crack from pre-loading slightly more than recommended)???


ADDED 6-9-09: Side by side comparison of the GM vs Comp Cams lifter. How can anyone say 1.5grams is worth 1/2 the cup depth and 1/10th the clip thickness? Rediculus. I bet these were designed on a Friday at about 4pm.

 

Hi guys,
I just wanted to state for the record that my comp R's are running fine after approx 10 years, they have not failed. They do make more noise than a gm lifter but they rev great. I took apart the upper end around 2004 and inspected the lifters, they looked good. Haven't touched 'em since. From my understanding on research with the big block chevy comp R's, these lifters are almost like a solid roller lifter, and they sound like a solid roller lifter.
I use the comp beehive springs along with the pro-mag rocker arms, non-self aligning.

 

Well my luck ran out. One of them failed....the clip is gone.
Going to stockers.

 

Just a follow up on my motor...
I took the intake off yesterday with the roller rocker, pushrods, and yes of course the comp R's. I found 4 of them with missing clips. The lifter plunger sits a lot higher without a clip and this is what happened to them. No sign of the clips in the lifter valley, they must have found their way to the oil pan. Hopefully I found the problem with the engine running rich & not passing smog..

 

Design has changed and I went what LPE recommended for a 6500 rpm engine with up to 620 lift, standard GM roller lifters.

 

My motor supposedly came with CompR lifters so I was scared to beat on it until I swapped them out. I'm Currently going through the motor refreshing gaskets and your post helped me find out that I have OEM lifters... THANK GOD lol Only running a CC305 cam, so my next motor will get LS7 lifters. OEM is fine for what I'm doing now.

 

That is awesome. Since I post pictures side by side, all the debating stopped which is also awesome. Picture says 1000 words.

I recently tore my car apart to part it out.. and found 0 clip retains in my oil pan.. but I only had probably 2000 miles on those crappy "R" lifters and the clips were just starting to break. The remaining 6K or so were the GM parts and of course they looked brand new.

2000 miles!!! HAHAHA

BTW, I think Comp Cams just released a connecting rod with no bottom cap.. they said as long as you advance timing about 10 degrees this would keep the piston seated against the crank. Who wants to try it?

 

I still stand by what I've stated. Your pictures don't prove the retainers are bad. They just prove the QC isn't up to par. As said a thousand times before, those retainers are to do nothing while they have an adjustment on them. They are not to come into contact with the plunger when there is a load on them. If they do, there are much bigger problems than lifters.

 

This thread addresses a possible problem that occured more than 8 years ago. Is it really needed?

 

50K on my Comp R's and no problems.

 

I have some for sale if anyone's interested.