Reuse roller lifters?

[djharr]

I am building up a 1968 Mexican block, and after much thought, I have decided that not taking advantage of all the new tech would be stupid. So, I am going to go ahead and put an F303 roller cam into the engine. This of course means that I need to get some roller lifters for the block. Given that this is an old block, I need to be using the Ford Motorsport retrofit roler lifters, with the integral link ties to keep the lifters from moving. These suckers run around $500 new, but I know someone who has some he is willing to part with for a lot less than that. However, he has run them in his car in the past.

Now, the point I am trying to confirm here is that roller lifters are much less sensitive to wear than regular flat lifters, right? It is entirely reasonable to use a set of used roller lifters on a new roller cam without worrying about them ruining the cam, correct? I realize that the lifters can wear, but since these have been run only a couple of thousand miles, they should be okay for use, am I wrong?

Obviously, I will inspect the lifters carefully before putting them into my engine, but I just want to make sure that it is even in the realm of possibility that these things might be worth bothering with before I start talking about giving this guy money.

Thanks for the help.

David

 

[BlownFiveLiter]

You can reuse hydraulic roller lifters, yes, but you're going to run into a problem when using them with the '68 block. You would either need to run a reduced base circle cam, or run the link-bar lifters. That means the F303 cam is out, unless you pick up some new lifters. Otherwise, you'll run into the problem of exposing the oil holes in the lifters and bleeding them down, possibly starving top end of oil, since the lifter bores are shorter in the non-roller blocks than they are in the roller blocks.

 

[djharr]

You can reuse hydraulic roller lifters, yes, but you're going to run into a problem when using them with the '68 block. You would either need to run a reduced base circle cam, or run the link-bar lifters.

These are the link-bar lifters, the retrofit ones especially designed for the pre-1980 blocks. The thing that makes them attractive is that since they are used, the guy is selling them WAY less than the $500 I would have to spend to get new ones. But they are the right type of lifter for my block.

David

 

[BlownFiveLiter]

Whoops, I missed that!

You should be just fine, in that case. Flat tappet cams are the only ones that are basically "married" to a set of lifters because of the wear pattern on them.