Flat tappet lifter failure

[Doug Hoven]

Originally Posted by Terry Cain

Yep. That's me. After 3 failures in a role, not racing for 2 years while waiting on parts and then the cost. Yep, That is me.
Not to worry, I sold the car. Guess I'll quit racing as everyone wants to stick their head in the sand and go about this problem like it doesn't exist.

Well that sounds like a logical chain of events to me.... Did you try something different all three times, or did the same thing over and over again expecting different results? I've always been an advocate of running as little valve spring pressure needed to avoid valve float at the peak rpm your engine is going to see. I'm not trying to get up on a soap box and tell you how to build your engine. I build my own stuff, and it's slow, but I'm working on it. I am trying a new, well new to me, camshaft this season. With any luck all of my talk on here won't cause my cam to flatten on startup. I've had good luck with Clay Smith lifters on the handful of flat tappet engines I've built.