Shubeck lifters

[ProfessorRock]

I would like to talk to someone who has personal experience with the old shubeck lifters. I already know the whole story about them so I don't need any of that, I just want to know about the crown and how they rotated on the cam lobe and if that was a problem, just some basic questions that I'd like to talk to someone on the phone not go back-and-forth on here with everybody giving their opinion not looking to use them
Thanks Pm me pls

[GTX JOHN]

I still run them on Several Stockers.
Never had an issue with them but I run Hydraulics
abet with short travel. I have never lost a lobe in
Twenty Years. I do mark and check when I build and first run engine
to check rotation no matter what combo of lifter and cam.

My boy ran solids and higher spring pressures and he
had terrible experiences

I wish I could find more of them.

[Alan Roehrich]

We ran the solids. Never hurt a Shubeck unless we broke something else first. Of course, I cared for them as though they were nitroglycerin in thin crystal containers.


I'm actually going to approach some people about making them. They make me way less nervous than the DLC coating.

[Terry Cain]

Never mind

[Jim Cimarolli]

I ran the solids with 250 on the seat in a BBC for several years, never broke one, but I never used a 2-step.

[Alan Roehrich]

Originally Posted by Jim Cimarolli

I ran the solids with 250 on the seat in a BBC for several years, never broke one, but I never used a 2-step.

We only used it on the starting line, never in the burnout.


I think David Reher is correct, the two step is hard on valvetrain. We probably shouldn't use it on the starting line, either.


I approach valvetrain in a pretty much OCD manner. I will saw I saw some very expensive engines that were damaged when things broke because small details were ignored. I saw a brand new mega dollar big block once, it had a pushrod stabbed through an exhaust rocker, and the intake lifter on that cylinder had the foot shattered.Engine had Holroyd rockers on it. Clark told me when I bought my first set, "take a 'tootsie roll', and polish every bit of the burr off of the pushrod cup where the punch makes the oil hole.' The engine with the damage had untouched rockers, the burr was still present, and the fracture where the pushrod went through started in that burr. I was stunned that all the rockers looked like that.

[Rick J]

Originally Posted by Alan Roehrich

We ran the solids. Never hurt a Shubeck unless we broke something else first. Of course, I cared for them as though they were nitroglycerin in thin crystal containers.


I'm actually going to approach some people about making them. They make me way less nervous than the DLC coating.

Alan, what makes you nervous about DLC coated lifters?

[Alan Roehrich]

Originally Posted by Rick J

Alan, what makes you nervous about DLC coated lifters?

DLC coatings are notorious for application problems, and incompatibility issues. For example, at one point, Joe Gibbs racing had a large number of disastrous failures due to a particular DLC coating being incompatible with their oil. The company applying the coating changed the type of coating, and did not notify Joe Gibbs or do the requisite testing.


When DLC coating fails in any way, it is just as destructive as a Shubeck failing.

[Bryan Broaddus]

I have 1 used set and one new set for a Big Block Chevy if someone is looking for them.

[Dave Noll]

Originally Posted by ProfessorRock

I just want to know about the crown and how they rotated on the cam lobe

A flat tappet cam is ground with between 4 - 6 minutes of angle across the lobes of the cam. The crown on the lifter meets the 6 minute angle of the lobe, as the lobes are not centered directly below the lifter bores. As the cam spins, the angle on the lobe grabs one side of the crown on the lifters and spins them in their bores.