Trend tool steel lifters

[Alan Roehrich]

Ceramic lifters rarely fail or shatter unless something else happens first. I'm not a huge fan of them, however, properly used and cared for, they work, and they work well. The problem is they only have two modes, normal, and catastrophic failure, there is no in between. That, and they are vulnerable to the failure of other components.

The only time we've had ceramic lifters fail is when something else broke first.

[Michael Kilduff]

Interesting conversation.

Has anyone back-to-back tested the Schubeck/Smith style lifter vs the tool steel lifter on a dyno, and if so was there any power increase or decrease?

I've got Schubecks in my 327 sbc stocker engines and wonder if they are worth the risk.

[Jeff Lee]

Originally Posted by astikhossw

Dave this could happen to your cam if one the ceramic lifters shatter.

At least the cam is in one piece. When I lost a puck on the dyno, the puck caught between a lobe and the cam tunnel and broke the cam. My beloved master engine man Bud caught it and shut it off with no more damage.
Prior to that, I had the complete composite lifter bodies that Schubeck initially built. I had a lifter shatter in the burnout box. No initial damage but the ceramic lapped the bearings pretty good.

These were not isolated cases. Thankfully, Joe Schubeck helped with some of the financial losses on both occasions. And these were back when these were new products. Sometimes you lead technology and you either win or get bit! I would hope by now (and it sounds true) that all the bugs have been ironed out.

After two incidents of serious engine damage, my last Stocker engine we built hydraulic lifters out of some old Isky Chilled Iron lifters. The new Stocker engine has a set of PPP tool steel lifters. The shop has a coating they developed that allows 500+ open spring pressures on break-in at idle which I will have.