Bodacious Critter

Help me clarify my foggy brain on a couple of things. If the retaining clip is being damaged by an excess of preload, is this due to the fact that the excessive preload causes them, by design, to experience pump up? Otherwise, it would not seem like this would be a problem, within reasonable limits. An 1/8 turn past zero would be barely past .005" on a standard 3/8" fine threaded (24 TPI) rocker stud. That's within their spec, right? Are folks still having problems with them, even then? It would seem that from other things that I've read previously on this problem, as well as here, that although the design might not be optimum, it may just require a more delicate balance. That is to say that overall valvetrain weight, RPM, open spring pressures and even cam profile, as well as preload may need to be more carefully considered. I'm not defending CC here, I do tend to believe they have a problem but just maybe not to the degree as has been reported. Admittedly, I would not purchase them at this point. But if I already had them and there had not been a problem thus far, I would just review all the criteria and keep a good eye on things.

SS RRR

I'm sure this is unimportant in this time of the Comp R lynching phase, but I just bought them in July. They've been in the car for over a thousand miles. Spring pressure is 150lbs closed and 375 open. Engine has been taken up to 6400rpm on numerous occassions. Popped both valve covers off over the weekend and readjusted valves for giggles. All pushrods were uniform when each cylinder was at TDC and all adjusting nuts were at the same position as when they were first adjusted (1/8 turn or approx. .007 preload with my 7/16 studs). This tells me no clips are broken.
Too lazy at this point to take the manifold off. Take it FWIW.

AHARTZ28

I have had mine for 2 years now with the new style retainer and have no problems. With nitrous and reving it to 7k! i have to agree with you on the variables and the installation. most of the pics i have seen from here and the impala board the retainers are beaten up by something. possibly the pushrod?
i have these in my car and my wifes daily driven formula.

BlownF1

I have Comp R's (which ones is anybodys guess though) and I'm perfectly happy and confident in them. One thing I'd like to point out, and I believe to be the root cause of most of the failures as others suspect too, is that when I got mine, I asked quite a few people (both here and elsewhere) how to set them up correctly and got so many varying answers and opinions that I finally ended up doing what I should have done in the beginning; READ THE F'in DIRECTIONS COMP PROVIDES! Life's been good ever since...

96ta(nick)

I guess i am ok... I have the old style..

tjwong

Comp Rs have been in my LT4 for over 2 years with regular passes to 6500+. No problems as of now. However I do check the lash peridodically as per Comps instructions. These are a race lifter not meant to be in a daily driver. But often as with other performance parts they are often used on the street. Mine are lashed 1/8th of a turn after zero lash.

slverbullet

edit: i erased my previous post due to the fact that i was a little upset when i wrote it and probably came off sounding foolish.

i just got done having over half of my Comp R lifters lose their retaining rings. i spoke with a gentleman at comp cams and we had a heart to heart and i decided that the comp R's for my car, which is used slightly more than track use (no more than 2k miles over the course of 8 months), are not right for what i need. i was informed that the comp R lifters are a very regular maintenance lifter and that they arent necessarily recommended for your vehicle if you cant perform regular tuning on them. for those of you looking for a maintenance free lifter, might i recommend the OEM lifters (comp, crane, etc.) or perhaps a better performance lifter, the morels (all of which i'm sure have been mentioned. just thought i'd reiterate this point). for those of you staying with the comp R's, just keep an eye on them and as the tech mentioned to me, relash them regularly to keep them lashed properly.

foggedz

Just put comp r's in my car a few months ago. No problems so far. Set them with a very slight pre load cold. Started the car up, drove it down the road, and got it nice and warmed up. Re set them to 0 lash after motor warmed up.

slverbullet

the technician explained to me that if you want to keep them in good working order, you need to be re-lashing them all the time. especially if your car is a daily driver (which they are not intended for). either keep up on them or its only a matter of time before you start losing clips.

JustNO

all the timee??? How can this be especially with a daily drive car?
Morel is the best.

slverbullet

because, according to the tech at comp cams, these lifters are not designed to be used on a daily driver.

turbo_Z

Thats bull. How can a lifter be designed to take the extreme abuse of 7000 rpm shifts but not daily driving of which rarely sees over 2500 rpm. I am no engineer but this seems fairly obvouis to me Comp is just making excuses.

Its been proven time and time again the stock lifters work just fine so why are people still bitching?

slverbullet

i'm still bitching because back when i bought my comp R's, this problem wasnt as prevalent then as it is now. so i feel that i bought a lifter that i thought was going to be reliable for my high performance application. if i were to go and buy the lifter now, i wouldnt be able to complain much due to the widespread of information about these lifters clips failing nowadays.

and call comp if you want an explanation to your "thats bull" theory. i'm tired of worrying about it. the only thing the guy told me was that the new design R's are an off-road use only lifter that requires constant maintenance. something about the design allows them to pump up during high rpms that makes them react similar to a solid lifter. and that they have a very low tolerance for not being lashed correctly.

foggedz

My car is by no means a daily driver. Maybe 2-3k a year.

Steves396lt1

Mine gets less mileage than that,2-3kmiles, but they sound like a**.I have had more than one set of these lifters, and the ones with this issue sounds terrible, and they were adjusted right, then readjusted after warming them up. I am going to run it this weekend then I am replacing them with GMPP OEM. They are not worth the trouble that can happen to them. Comp Cams has to fix this problem, the one that there customer service doesnt seem to understand.