Failed hydraulic lifters again

[Andy]

I recently had my head skimmed replaced the valves and hydraulic lifters.
last meeting the car felt underpowered and was smoking alot, after i got home i ran a compression test and got 200psi across 1,2,3 with 4 getting 150psi.
There was knocking coming from the engine so i have removed the engine.
Upon inspection the pistons seem slack in the bores.But i have noticed that five or six of the brand new (8,5lap races old) lifters can be compressed easily by hand.
Does anybody have any ideas as to why this has happened?
Shit lifters? Poor oil pressure?? (Light never came on)
Any help or advice is always appreciated.

[Pistol Pete]

When i fitted my engine and ran it up for the first time, i broke a valve from a stuck lifter. I put this down to either poor oil pressure (cranked the engine with king lead off and light went out) or dirt in the oil/lifter area which caused it to bind.

Being able to compress the lifters by hand doesn't sound right though! What engine are you running?

[Andy]

e16se

[jeremy fisher]

I thought that they should be easily compressed by hand when in good condition and minus any oil pressure? Or am I wrong?

[mowgli]

not necessarily. they should keep pumped up when inside the engine, even when the engine is off.

either the oil pressure is down, or there is an air lock or blockage in the oil feed pipe up to the head, or thre is so much wear in the shells or cam journals that the oil is pissing out before it gets to the lifters

[Andy]

Thanks mike.im in the process of stripdown and measuring so il report my findings.

[Alex J]

Id be looking at oil pump maybe

[Andy]

That was my train of thought alex.i need to fit a proper gauge this time.

[Andy]

Tomorrow i will be measuring the cam and crank.
I stripped it tonight and found the followers to be squared off lol the lobes dont feel clever either.See my other thread...
The main bearings looked ok,the wear on the shell looked perfectly normal.However some of the big end shells were scored and worn.The journals look alright but shall see what the mic says.I know the block is trash as the pistons were like throwing a sausage roll down a high street.i have a replacement block i will be measuring too.

[Andy]

The crank measured quite a way down.
Any ideas on the lifters? And is there anyway of repairing them? Or are they scrap?

[RallyMarshal]

Do you need to run hydraulics?

Paul..

[Andy]

Yes i do.We have to run everything stock mate.

[Andy]

The crank measured quite a way down.
Any ideas on the lifters? And is there anyway of repairing them? Or are they scrap?

Bump

[jimbob-mcgrew]

" throwing a sausage roll down the high street " ... lol... joker.

ive seen a bunch of people submerge the lifters in a bucket of oil, and pump them again and again, untill they firm up solid.
you could try that. to see if there ok.
i did this with mine, when i rebuiilt my engine, 80% of them firmed up by hand, 20% didnt. i fitted them anyway, as the engine ran ok beforehand. didnt have any problems, bar a little bit of tappy noise, for the first 60 seconds on the initial start-up.

does sound like lack of oil pressure from the accelerated wear on new components, in such a short space of time.

like you mentioned before, a pressure gauge for the next setup, will be a good idea.

if your replacing the pump, get a good quality one, gm or similar hi-spec, as ive heard stories of the cheap ones sometimes only lasting 10k.