Schubeck lifters

[Alan Roehrich]

Any race engine will occasionally break something.

However, if you're hurting stuff regularly, you're doing it wrong. Either you just aren't buying good enough parts, or you have a package that just doesn't work.

I'm no fan of Schubeck lifters, or any other ceramic lifter. However, I can tell you that of all the parts we have hurt, a Schubeck has never been what we in the automotive industry call the "primary failed part". Every time we've broken one, something else broke first.

Another thing I can tell you is that we've never hurt anything with too much spring pressure. But too little has caused a lot of issues, and that is not only in Stock engines, but even more so in Super Stock. If you have good quality parts, and your valvetrain system is well developed, it will be happy, and breakage will be very rare. If you have something in your system that isn't working with the other stuff, it won't be happy, and you'll have breakage.

I've seen a ton of failed parts in the pits, just from trying to help other racers with their problems. I will tell you that I have seen a lot of stuff that could have been prevented with proper preparation and better maintenance practices, and that especially applies to valvetrain.

We are rapidly phasing out the ceramic lifters, I doubt more than one more engine will use them. I'll be using about 99% Trend stuff for the flat tappet engines from here on out.

Stock has escalated far beyond what it really should have, there is no doubt, and no denying it. However, the genie is out of the bottle at this point. A new spring rule would be just another expensive rule that NHRA would have to police, and it will have far reaching consequences, that will create a host of problems of their own.

I know losing an engine is an expensive and painful thing, we've lost a few in the last 3-4 years. But I can honestly say that it was not due to the rules, and not due to ceramic lifters, either. If you were to do a serious study on it, while it might appear on the surface that ceramic lifters are a big problem, I'm betting in reality there will be a lot more parts with a lot higher rates of failure. We do not need a rule change, not one allowing roller lifters, and not one controlling spring pressure.