Going through my cam swap and i planned to reuse my stock lifters with about 100K on them. They are all nice and tight and no scoring on the bodies.

I have hard that its okay to reuse roller lifters, but the Haynes manual says to install new lifters with a new cam... does this hold true for roller lifters?

 

Mandatory for flat tappet cams, but not for roller cams. Though, if it was me, I would replace them.

 

Thanks! Budget is running a bit low and the stock lifters are all still very tight.

 

Well, I can certainly understand being cost conscious, but 100k is a 100k on those lifters. It may end up costing you more time and money if one fails.

 

I just got done with my CC503 cam swap.

I thought about reusing my lifters, but I bit the bullet and replaced everything involved with the valvetrain....

• Lifters
• Oil pump drive gear
• Timing set
• Waterpump drive gear
• Pushrods
• 1.6 Pro Mags
• Spring, retainers, etc

....except for the valves and cam bearings. It's expensive, but I didn't want to take a chance with the old lifters.

I suppose not redoing the rest of the bottom end with 97K on the engine is a risk too....but if it blows up it will give me an excuse to buy a new 383 short block.

 

ACE, i hear ya. The only thing im thinking about re-using at this point are the lifters.. i have everything else.. bought a 'kit' when money wasnt so tight. The lifters are in really good shape.. actually my entire engine is in darn good shape.. the odometer has 104K on the clock, but i can still see cross hatching marks in the cylinders.

How much HP did you pick up with the 503 swap? did you go with bigger injectors?

 

I don't have any dyno numbers, lack my headers(running stock exhaust manifolds and full exhaust), and am still sorting out the tune.....but the car has picked up around 3.5 mph in the 1/8 from my baseline runs before the cam swap. Without the headers, I think I'm leaving quite a bit of HP on the table too.

It is much stronger on the top end and does not run out of breath at 5000 rpms like it used to.....pulls past 6k really strong(my redline is 6500, but I'm shifting around 6100).

I did go bigger on the injectors.....30# SVO's.

At the track last week, I came around another LT1 4th gen so bad that he asked me what I had done to the car. I was also running .3ths quicker than the LS1 4th gens there that night.

 

If I had to choose, I would do new cam bearings before I would get new lifters. At least the fwd bearing.

 

the ls7 lifters are CHEAP ( around a hunred bucks ) and will replace your stock lifters.

 

Yea i thought the same thing. I had planned on having to replace them, but when i took them out they were in really good condition. The rollers were really nice and tight.

I suspect the engine may have been rebuilt prior to my purchase... pistons are still a semi silver looking cross hatching is still there.

 

Sounds good. Im hoping to get my car running again soon.

 

I tried to use my old stockers, but after starting it up the motor would tick badly. Had to tear it down to install the ls7 lifters and that took care of the ticking. My 65k stock lifters looked fine, I thought they were good but after the start up I found out otherwise.

 

Your lifters are re-usable, you can take them apart to clean them out if you are pretty good with small mechanical parts, otherwise soak them in mineral sprits then use a v-block and a small socket to push in on the plunger in a bench vise to bleed them down.

The only time hyd. roller lifters will "go bad" internally is if you have been cooking the oil and a sludge layer builds up in them...still this is fixable by cleaning the internals.

If you want to take them apart, simply use a pick to pry the U retaining clip out while pushing down on the plunger - then noting the order in which the plunger, metering plate, barrel, spring and bleed orifice go, take it apart and clean the parts with solvent then lightly oil and put back together.

 

Thanks. What are mineral spirits? Could i use a degreaser?

 

I'm reuseing my stock 135k lifters, I believe that is what the builder did to mine. Mentioned letting them soak for a week and they came out looking really good.