Good luck Pete
Look forward to the results both on the dyno with the carb and at the track with the superram.

 

Well, today was the day! Finished up the motor and bolted her up to the dyno as planned. Engine builder friend was not too thrilled right off the bat. He did not like the ancient, worn out hei distributor borrow from a friend. Timing was jumping around like crazy. We removed the vac advance and locked all the timing in to keep it steady. My borrowed dual plane weiand manifold was not the greatest choice for making good power. It was available, so I used it. First pull gave us 435 hp and 470 ft lbs of torque. Not too bad I guess. He Hoped for more. I just wanted it to live and not polute the oil with metal as it did earlier. The 37 pulls had very different results. We would lose 30 hp and 40 ft lbs of torque. Then we would gain it all back on the next pull. Very strange situation and we were confused. We then drainded the oil. It was a horrible shade of METAL! . Sad day. Ripped the motor 1/2 way down to find that the replacement crower lifters had collapsed. At least 1/2 the valves were not opening much. Bob (engine guy) expected 500 hp and 525 ft lbs. Valves not opening explains why. Back to the drawing board. Charitable contributions gladly accepted Time to get drunk.

 

i had a set of crower lifters collapse on me before , i now run the crane cam set and have no problem with them at all

 

The new cam is a Comp grind. I will use their lifters this time around. I will never use crower again. Poor products and poor customer service.

 

comp is good , good luck man

 

I will cut open the filter and see just how much trash went thru it. If need be, it will come completely down, and start over. We did a cam check. It made it. Funny, I can build them for others and they work fine and last forever. Go figure.

 

Pete when my first failier with the 396 happened, it started with what I thought was a colapsed stock lifter. When I pulled one apart I found it failed from metal getting in there from the cam plate grinding with the upper gear. Which also took out the bearings.
You really need to get rid of all Crower parts. You have horible luck with them. Hopefully that's all your problem is the lifters.

 

You are right Rich. Crower= chit! Lifters are the last Crower part. They exploded like they had waaay too much spring pressure . They didn't though.The lifter guts actually fell out and the snap ring stayed in the correct spot of its bore. What are the odds?

 

Da#m Pete,
I cannot believe what you are going through.
I know I will never use crower parts!!!!!
Keep the faith, I will come together and be a beast.

 

Thanks man, I will get it eventually. It is slappin me but I am gonna slap it back. I have no axe to gring with Crower but they quality has sure let me down. No way should 135-145 lbs of (recommended) seat pressure grenade a set of $425 lifters. I am gonna call comp on monday to get the facts (in their opinion) on the seat pressure that will be safe with their lifters. My gut says I should be around 125 closed and 300 open. Both Crower and Comp recommended the same spring and approx spring pressures. I may take a bit of spring pressure out. Then again maybe not. If this stuff was easy, I guess everyone would do it. Kinda kool, pretty big hp and torque numbers considering more than 1/2 the valves were barely opening. If anyone local owns a victor jr manifold they would consider loaning me for the next dyno session, I would appreciate it. I am already rounding up a better distributor.

 

Pete, I almost threw up when I read the latest This has become insane Even though you're running a .600" lift on the exhaust side, and what something like 330-340 lbs. pressure w/valve fully opened, how in the world can a hyd. roller setup have lifter failure like that? Are the Crower lifters THAT poorly made? Wow. My heart goes out to you, bro.

I had my stockers replaced with Melling lifters (from LPE). After approx. 3,000 mi. of operation, there have been no problems.

Again, I'm awfully sorry that you're going thru this. Let's pick up the pieces and start over. Will you and your engine builder be contacting Crower about this?

 

In my opinion, the crower stuff is that bad. It defies logic that it could fail so violently. Pushrod length was perfect, springs were set properly and lash was right. Motor only went to 5800 rpm. The common denominator for both 406 failures were the Crower lifters. In 25 years experience, my builder has never seen this type of failure.

 

pete sorry to hear about your mis fortune but i would look some where else

crower is the best of the best parts money can buy i am sure you have a problem somwhere you are not looking at

good luck just the same

 

Pete, corky beat me to the post, but I have to agree with what he is saying.....there has to be another issue.

Is it the same cam? Is it properly lined up with the bores...my latest cam is somewhat borderline to the previously mentioned, but within spec, and has been fine. Any more and I would have been REAL nervous.

I know of MANY using crower stuff and yes, like most things, if you search hard enough you will find people that had problems, but I have not seen that much with crower. I have heard their service sucks, but again, if you look hard enough ---you can find that with everything.

My father uses crower lifter with his BB and over 720 inches of lift and springs as strong as most cars have on the front suspension and its fine also.

I guess my point is to not be a crower cheerleader, but to just suggest you take a look at other things other than the failed component...usually its not that obvoius.

Wish you the best of luck --- and hope you can salvage the majority of it, and come out to the good.

Best of wishes...

 

Crower MIGHT be to blam but i've used their products for some time with no issues in my Pontiac motor that does see 6000rpms frequently. Everyones got a brand that doesn't like there cars for some reason and Crower must not like your 406 Pete but i hope you have better luck with COMP