V8 lifter problem

[MikeAK]

Hi, put this in International although it's a Range Rover as it's a generic V8 question. 

Hi just fitted a new cam and lifters to a 4.6 V8. The engine has now run for about 1 hour and the lifters are still very noisy.

So I took off the rocker covers to had a look and noticed that the lifters seem to leak down very quickly over a few seconds. The attached video shows me manually turning the engine taking a valve from closed to open and the lifter leaking down. All lifter behave the same.

 

 This surprised me as i would normally expect the lifters to hold up for several hours otherwise the engines would clatter every time they are started which normally only happens if  left for several days. 

Rang Turners who supplied the cam and lifters and they recommended running it longer to see if it "settles down".

I will do this but thought first I would double check the lifter preload in case I messed it up but all are correct in the 0.04" to 0.06" range.

While doing this I emptied the lifters of oil to check the preload and it was very easy to push the oil out using a wood dowel pressing on the lifter cap by hand. in contrast the old lifters needed to be put in a vice to push the oil out which is what I have experienced before. So it seems like a radical difference between the old and new lifters.

So I put one of the old lifters in the engine and bolted the rockers on with the cam at it's peak and after several hours the lifter had not leaked down.

It seems to me that the new lifters have a far to high leak down rate, but would like peoples thoughts before getting back in touch with Turners.

Thanks

Mike

 

[smallfry]

Firstly, are you sure the lifters are full of oil before testing them ?

Are you sure you have engine oil pressure ?

If they really do leak down this quickly when cold, they are no good, which would not surprise me TBH.

[MikeAK]

Hi,

Yes lifters are definitely full full of oil.

I don't have an oil pressure gauge but the oil light goes out immediately the engine starts and doesn't comeback on for several seconds when stopping, also oil is visible at the rockers when running.

I have spoken to Turners who are sending out a replacement set. Speaking to them they said they used to supply Ajusa lifters until recently but these are no longer available and they have changed to another brand.

Will be fitting the replacement set this weekend.

As a side note Turners have been brilliant with their customer service, so hopefully this will get sorted soon.

Mike

[ThreePointFive]

I have very noisy lifters/valves/springs/rockers/I don't know what, so I'd be very interested to hear if new lifters solve it.

[FridgeFreezer]

16 hours ago, ThreePointFive said:

I have very noisy lifters/valves/springs/rockers/I don't know what, so I'd be very interested to hear if new lifters solve it.

If it turns out you were sold a dodgy batch of lifters all along that would be quite the turn-up

[ThreePointFive]

I'm running out of ideas what else it could be, though having tried to replace some of them before I did the last rebuild (with the cylinder liners), it didn't exactly go well for my brand new cam.

The only parts remaining from it's original state are the rocker arms and valves (not the shafts or valve springs) and the pistons. It's ruining my enjoyment of driving it as it just sounds broken. I've spent a lot of money to end up with something I don't like driving.

[MikeAK]

Hi all,

 

Thought I'd give an update on this now I've been driving it for a couple of months.

Turners did send a new set of lifters out, these were the same as the first set just plain white box no branding or identification. These behaved in exactly the same way as the first set. I'm always suspicious of products where the manufacturer isn't prepared to identify themselves.

So I decided it was time to bite the bullet and source some different known brand lifter.

I found some BGA branded lifters that appear to be new old stock manufactured in 2010.

Fitted these and the engine went quiet within a minute of starting and has been fine ever since.

Prior to fitting them I dismantled one of the BGA ones to compare with one of the turners ones. I have no means of measuring the clearance between the outer case and the inner plunger, but feeling by hand the BGA ones had barely detectable clearance very hard to feel. In contrast the Turners lifters had easily felt clearance, much slacker in comparison. I think this was causing excessive leakdown?

Googling around it seems that this is now a common problem, not just on RV8s but on many older engines. It seems that as OEMs stop making lifters for these older engines the supply is increasingly coming from China etc and are just not made to the correct specification. Problems seem to range from excessive leakdown to being made out of chocolate and destroying camshafts.

 

Regards

Mike

[ThreePointFive]

Bugger. Mine are still as noisy as ever after 1,000 miles so I am thinking I need to do the same. Rimmers sell genuine LR ones or Kent ones for the same money, can't really find any other branded ones. Even then, I'm not confident they're not the exact same as I have with a different box.

Did you have any issues with bedding in new lifters on your already run-in cam?

[FridgeFreezer]

2 hours ago, MikeAK said:

Googling around it seems that this is now a common problem, not just on RV8s but on many older engines. It seems that as OEMs stop making lifters for these older engines the supply is increasingly coming from China etc and are just not made to the correct specification. Problems seem to range from excessive leakdown to being made out of chocolate and destroying camshafts.

Unfortunately I think that's just everything everywhere now - all the middle ground gets swallowed up by ever-cheaper cack and it's only the real high quality stuff that manages to cling on for the few customers who are willing to pay the premium.

Feels these days you either buy whatever cheap junk there is or pay 10x the price for "genuine or better" with very little in the middle.

[Nonimouse]

It's not just V8's, a friend has gone through three brand new sets of lifters, prior to getting lucky on the fourth!  He wasn't pleased.

[Bowie69]

I've used Rhoads lifters with good success in the past, however they are *designed* to bleed down and will be a bit noisy at idle.

I don't like the fact that Turners are supplying unbranded stuff these days, but suspect it really is all they can get, as per Fridge above.

[Bowie69]

Of course you could avoid all this nonsense and go to solid roller lifters and mega-lumpy cam  😛 

[ThreePointFive]

Clutching at straws perhaps, but would this sort of leaking down effect the running of the engine? For example, if they're getting all the oil squeezed out on the upstroke, would that not shorten both duration and lift? Worse, wouldn't it make it variable for each valve as with these tolerances no two lifters would behave the exact same way?

 

[Bowie69]

In theory it could, however bleed down will only really be in effect at lower RPM, with higher oil pressure and flow once you bring the engine speed up it won't make any difference at all.

 

[Escape]

19 hours ago, Bowie69 said:

I've used Rhoads lifters with good success in the past, however they are *designed* to bleed down and will be a bit noisy at idle.

That's reassuring to hear! I have a set of Rhoads bleed down lifters in the 5.0, but that hasn't run yet. They were bought as part of my silly upgrade spree (along with the roller rockers that turned out to be too high to fit under the rocker covers...) and I had questioned the sanity of my choice. I typically use low to mid rpm, and am hoping for the claimed increase in torque due to shorter overlap and less lift causing more/better swirl.

 

[Bowie69]

Yep, and a lower stable idle speed for the same reasons -is the 5.0 in front of an auto? That's why I run them... a bigger cam than recommended for auto, but allows a lower idle speed. A high idle in an auto causes a lot of creep, especially in low first...

 

[smallfry]

All factory fit lifters for Rover V8s used to come from one company in USA. Grand Rapids, Michigan state. They also supplied GM and Ford.

A lot of what Turners(and everyone else) sells now is carp. Mainly because you cannot get decent stuff from original manufacturers (note I did not state OEM) any more, as volumes are too low for them to be bothered. This is also true of Tdi stuff, and one of the main reasons why I cant be bothered with the Rover V8 any more.  

A good set of lifters will cost you a couple of hundred quid nowadays, its no good buying a set for £60 and expecting them to be good. Ain't going to happen. I am not even sure where the likes of Piper or Kent Cams get theirs either. They will not tell you, I have asked. Only ones that I can think of is INA, but there are probably others. They actually manufacture them in their own factories. A lot of brands are a just a distributor, who buy them in from wherever and rebrand them in their own name, like a lot of stuff these days. 

Real Steel at Uxbridge used to do good ones at a reasonable price that were USA sourced, but TBH, I have not bought any from them for a few years now, so I dont know if they still do them. They still sell Rhoads lifters, but as said, they are designed to leak down at low revs, and they will do your head in if you are using thin oil. You should be using mineral 20w50 anyway, NOT synthetic, or even semi synthetic.

Apart from material crappiness and slopply tolerances, one of the main causes of this is oil. This engine was designed and built before the advent of synthetic oils, and one of the constituent components in the oil, was a substance called zincsomethingorother. ZDDP for short, and this is what protected flat tappet high load cams such as these. You can buy ZDDP additive from Real Steel 

It is not used in more up to date oils because of nanny state rules, bad for butterflies etc, and I am convinced this is a major part of the problem. While running Rover V8s, I always used a 20W50 SHPD diesel engine mineral oil, which had a good level of ZDDP in it, and probably still does if you ask the manufacturer of your choice for the spec. I never remember having a problem with lifters or camshafts, apart from the normal Rover V8 of them wearing out in about 70k miles or so.

[Bowie69]

19 minutes ago, smallfry said:

You should be using mineral 20w50 anyway, NOT synthetic, or even semi synthetic.

Agree for early oil pump variants, not so sure on the later ones, mine seem to like 15w40, which is not hugely thinner, but widely available.

 

[Escape]

1 hour ago, Bowie69 said:

Yep, and a lower stable idle speed for the same reasons -is the 5.0 in front of an auto? That's why I run them... a bigger cam than recommended for auto, but allows a lower idle speed. A high idle in an auto causes a lot of creep, especially in low first...

 

Nope, we went to great trouble rebuilding an R380 with a lower 1st gear (from a diesel) to mate to the 5.0 and adapt everything in the car to work with it. Pedalbox of course, but also wiring loom and in the P38 there is even a difference between the transfer boxes as the output shaft isn't identical... I'm sure it will be worth it. 🙂

[elbekko]

31 minutes ago, Bowie69 said:

Agree for early oil pump variants, not so sure on the later ones, mine seem to like 15w40, which is not hugely thinner, but widely available.

 

I've always ran 10W40 in mine.

[Escape]

In the past I also used semi-synthetic 10W40 in the Range Rovers, as that's what was most common. Now I run mineral 20W50 in everything, seems to work fine. I'd probably switch back to 10W40 if I would travel to Sweden in winter.

[FridgeFreezer]

10W40 fully synthetic here, it's pretty cheap from Smith & Allen and it's bang in the middle of factory spec for the later V8's.

In the early ones the oil pumps struggle to lift anything that's too thin but the later pump is a better design.

[smallfry]

IMO you are still better off with a mineral 20W50, even with the later crank driven pump. Its more about tolerances and whats in the oil rather than ability to lift.

Crank driven pump is for sure MUCH better. Even though the pump lobes are much smaller, it is running at twice the speed of the old cam/distributor driven pump.

Then there is all that load on the little distributor gear and shaft, especially on cold winter starts. Eeek.

[FridgeFreezer]

1 hour ago, smallfry said:

Then there is all that load on the little distributor gear and shaft, especially on cold winter starts. Eeek.

Distributor?

I remember having one many years ago, can't recommend it.

[Bowie69]

Coincidentally....  came across this, which has a reasonably simple test methodology:

 

You are not alone, it seems.