Flat tappet lifter failure

[Doug Hoven]

I understand completely. The material that camshafts were made out of 15-20 years ago seems to have been a much better material than what they are now. The camshaft I ran in my engine has had hundreds if not close to a thousand passes on it, and still looks brand new, but it was made 20+ years ago. I was fortunate to have a donation of old camshafts over this past season. A few may be of use the way they are, but at least if the lobe separation is what I want, I could always get them reground. Especially with cam prices, I’d much rather send an old cam out to get reground than have a new one done. As expensive as things are in stock, I would think that more and more would switch to a billet cam rather than a cast cam. I’m still amazed how cheap you can get an off the shelf cam from summit, competition products nowadays. For less than $200, you can get a cam and a set of flat tappet lifters(hydraulic of course). Not that you could race with one, but IMHO it’s crazy how prices can double and triple for a cast custom grind cam. There’s some users in this thread that seemed to have given up, and the only solution to make them happy would be to allow rollers. I hope that NHRA is smart enough to leave that rule alone.