Check it out...

[Tom Meyer]

I believe back in the day some creative racers built spacers held by dowel pins to get down to smaller journals on the crank to decrease bearing speed. Tech gave in and now we have Honda journals. BTW I was running 40 over king bearings with no problems but I don,t think you can get them in a full race bearing. Tom

[oldskool]

Originally Posted by GTX JOHN

The wire retainers drove us crazy..............We replace
them with "Tru Arc" style snap rings before installation.

I've got a wire retainer story. And since it's winter, some of you guys don't have anything better to do than read an old racing tale, anyhow. It was the 1st race of the season in '75 at this little airstrip track, near Forest Hill, LA. We didn't even have the car painted or lettered yet. It was a '68 Bird 330hp 400 E/SA. When TJ ran the 1st round, we could hear the engine missing and popping. When she got back to the pits, we just loaded it on the trailer and sat down to watch the rest of the race.

Then we heard over the PA system that because they had put a car in the wrong class, they had decided to rerun the 1st round. So, we popped the hood and pulled the valve covers. We discovered one loose rocker, and the pushrod looked like it was too short.

So, we pulled the intake and valley cover and discovered the problem. The guts of a lifter were lying there in the valley. Don't know why they hadn't gone below. Anyhow, we put the lifter back together, adjusted the rocker and put everything else back on, just as the call came for us to come to the staging lanes for the rerun.

So, TJ fired it up, backed it off the trailer and won the race that day. After that deal, I never trusted the flimsy paper clip retainers.

A guy gave me my 1st 455 because the guts came out of a lifter in his '70 GTO. He thought the engine was knockin and about to croak. So he bought a low mileage junkyard 400, which I installed for him. After the install, he said I could have the 455 if I wanted it. When I took the valley cover off, I discovered that the guts had come out of one lifter. But in this engine, they went on down to the pan.

We raced this engine for 3 seasons, in 3 different bracket cars. Went to 49 races in '78. Probably made between 800 and 1000 passes with it. It was still running mid 12's like a sewing machine when I gave it and the car it was in, to a guy that was racing with us.

Anyhow, after those 2 experiences with the wire retainers, I bought nothing but Rhoads lifters from then on. They have the snap ring retainers. And they were great for running bracket with a stock converter--smooth idle, and plenty of low end torque. We made thousands of passes with 'em and never had a single failure.

I assume that they would have little to no benefit in a Stocker, because the converter would keep the RPM above 3000. But just for fun, I'll ask anyhow, have any of you guys ever used Rhoads lifters in a Stocker ?

I assume that to compete nowadays you need high spring pressures and limited travel tool steel lifters or some trick lifters of some kind.

[Lyn Smith]

I have had the snap ring come out of a couple of lifters in my Buick 455 Stocker and my theory is that when you break a rocker arm the loose push rod hits that snap ring ,or in my case the mickey mouse little stainless keeper and pops it out and then that is when the lifter come apart.A good set of rocker arms will help this problem.

[Mike Taylor 3601]

Are the lifters you all are having clips coming out full travel lifters,being they have the wire clips I am going to guess they are. Over the years I have worked on cars that lost the clips out the lifters, I believe a lot of the time valve float is the cause of clips coming out,when engine goes into valve float it starts compressing lifters and or gets slack between pushrods, lifters and causes inside of lifter to bang against clip and pop them out.
Like several have said put snap rings in them will stop it and even better switch to short travel lifters,I have shimmed regular lifters to reduce travel, you have to have .015'' travel to be legal.
May need to up spring pressure also.
Mike Taylor 3601