lifter trouble

[347mustang1967]

my stang was running horribly and i just got the engine back together its a 347 i took the intake off and suspected my lifters so i took em to to find that more than half were dented/ broken. (it sould be noted that a major disaster with water getting into my engine happened 3 weeks ago but I fixed that problem) here are my questions

1. can the water have resulted in my hydraulic flat tappet liffters getting messed up
2. is my camshaft ok/ could the lifters have destroyed the cam lobes
3 would the damaged lifters have caused my car to shake, not run smoothly, and perform very poorly????

 

[Grabber70Mach]

I would tend to think you wiped a cam lobe, from what I read this is a new rebuild?

 

[347mustang1967]

this is like a 2 week old engine a head gasket blew and let in all the water (the stock heads were the reason they blew i replaced them wit vic. jr.s) but the cam is 3 weeks old and so are the lifters everythings brand new

 

[D.Hearne]

If the lifters are trashed, so is the cam. The bearings will be as well. You'll have to start all over again. I doubt the water had anything to do with it. It didn't help, but I've seen many engines run fine with a milkshake in the oilpan. And depending on how much water got into the cylinders, you could also have bent connecting rods. Water does not compress. If there's enough to over fill the compressed volume at TDC, the rods are what will give first. You'll need to completely tear it all down and check everything to see if anything can be reused.

 

[347mustang1967]

it must have been the water i cant imagine what else it could have been every part of that engine from the pistons to the heads to the bolts are top of the line the whole set up cant be destroyed could it

 

[10secgoal]

Unfortunetly yes. The cam was probably wiped out a long time ago. Top of the line parts don't mean a thing when it comes to lack of lube, or detonation.

 

[CraigMBA]

You had two seperate problems:

1. The wrong head gaskets. You fixed this problem. And its not related to-

2. Your cam is flat and ate the lifters. You get to rebuild the engine again!

If you google "flat cam" or "bad lifters" you'll find you aren't alone. They took all the ZZDP out of the oils we have today because modern cars with roller cams don't need them.

I don't know what the rate of failure is, but it seems like everyone I know who builds an engine with a non roller cam does it twice till they get the combo of oil/additives right.....

 

[D.Hearne]

It's not just the additive change that wipes cam lobes. I had two failures and neither were due to the lack of zinc phosphate. Both were due to either bad lifters or too much lube at startup. Both had a single lifter & lobe failure and both in the first 20 minutes run time. In both cases the cam lobe failed to rotate the lifter in it's bore.

 

[valley firearms]

I've too been reading about this happening quite often. Not to bash on any one manufacturer, but it seems as though Comp Cams' name has come up more times than not. I've also read that it's the break-in that kills them. GM has an additive that can be purchased from the dealer that can be added for break in.

 

[D.Hearne]

One failure on mine was a Comp Cam, the other a Crane. Both made good on a replacement.