Reuse roller lifters?

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

StangGT1995 said:

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.

Click to expand...

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