Trend tool steel lifters
 

Any one using the trend tool steel lifters?

Re: Trend tool steel lifters
 

I have several very satisfied customers using them. We will be using them in one of our own engines soon, as we lost most of a set of Shubecks when we broke a connecting rod.

Re: Trend tool steel lifters
 

I have used quite a few sets of them with zero problems

Re: Trend tool steel lifters
 

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Re: Trend tool steel lifters
 

Dave, you want the "low travel" lifter. I don't use the EDM oil hole, and don't suggest it. Get the cam nitrided, and micro-polished, do not run it without doing that. You'll need to use regular break in methods (low open pressure, moly assembly lube, 2500 RPM for 30 minutes, etc) just like you would with a regular lifter. For tool steel, you really need to have the cam micro-polished to a super slick finish, it is expensive, but not as expensive as losing a cam and lifters, and trashing an engine.

Re: Trend tool steel lifters
 

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Re: Trend tool steel lifters
 

Been awhile since I raced but I seem to remember a measurement that NHRA had to determined if a lifter was hyd or not??? .15 or .18 something like that?? That is all it had to move.

Re: Trend tool steel lifters
 

I have a question, in the Schubeck thread, you stated that you use Schubeck lifters and now on Trend you say you use Trend. Which is it that you use. Also, what engines do you have running Trend and what is running Schubeck. I would also like to hear your answer on the EDM hole. I work at a Industrial machine shop and I do a lot of close tolerance work for some of the local racers racers. I do get to see inside some of the engines but I by no means am a engine builder. just a lurker that gets to help. Geez could you run that kind of spring pressure on trend lifters. I do not see how.
charles

Re: Trend tool steel lifters
 

It depends upon the application. In the case of our own personal engines, we bought several sets of Shubeck lifters before Shubeck closed, and before Trend began producing tool steel lifters. So, we use the Shubecks we own personally in our personal engines, for now, as we've run the same engines for quite a while. I have the Trend lifters in customer's engines, and I've sold several sets of Trend lifters to other engine builders who are not on the Trend program.

We have both Trend and Shubeck in big and small block Chevy as well as small block Ford engines.

With the proper setup we've run as much as 260# on the seat and 525# open on the Trend 0.842" lifter. It takes a nitrided camshaft that has been micropolished, the correct assembly lube, the correct break in oil, and the correct break in procedure. I know a couple of engine builders who run the cam in with a set of Shubecks they keep for that exact purpose, then swap to the tool steel lifters, and finish the break in.

A couple of the guys at Trend have advised us not to run the EDM hole, and we've had no failures. It is their product, I take their advice until I see the need to do otherwise.

Re: Trend tool steel lifters
 

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

Re: Trend tool steel lifters
 

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.

Re: Trend tool steel lifters
 

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.

Re: Trend tool steel lifters
 

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. :mad:

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.