heel2toe

iTrader: (41)

My sample size isn't large enough to be statistically significant but figure I'll add my .02. For years when installing cams I always pumped my lifters down and installed them soft. Then on first start would build oil pressure by holding the revs at say 3 grand until the lifters pumped up and called it good. This seemed to work fine for me for years and never really had any issues.

On my most recent build I did it that same way bled down started car all seemed fine. Well, Im now on aggressive GSC R2 cams and was revving my motor kinda high 9200. Well, Ive since thrown off 3 rockers on two separate occasions. Again not sure there is any merit in what im going to share but figure Ill post it anyway. After having a few discussions with folks in the know such as Kevin Kiggly and Greg @ GSC I was told to try installing bled up. I was also told that if I ever hear lifter tick then dont rev the car bc it'll be prone to throwing rockers. I've had my evo for years and also been in a lot of other evos and always thought what I was hearing was normal valvetrain noise since the 4G isnt known to have a quiet valvetrain.

Well, anyway this time around I tried installing the lifters and fully bled them up. I didn't do it per the manual in terms of pumping up with diesel bc it just seemed weird to me but rather used motor oil. I just poured some oil into a clean cup and submersed the lifter under the oil and started pumping with an allen key until it was fully pumped up. I then installed the lifters. Im not sure if this matters but I opted to turn the bottom end away from TDC so all 4 pistons were around halfway down if you will so there was no chance of valves hitting once cams were installed. Then I put in the cams bolted them down set dowels at TDC then rotated the bottom end back to TDC installed the belt and put motor back together. Sure enough on first start the valvetrain was silent. There was zero lifter tick, something that I just had grown to accept.

Again, if could have been that I had a couple collapsed lifters prior or something else wasn't happy so it's hard to say that by installing them this way was the right way to go about doing it. However, after doing it this way and hearing how quiet my valvetrain is its safe to say I'll be doing it like this moving forward.

Lumpy Sticks

iTrader: (3)

I have been building Ecotecs for the past 15 years or so. They have nearly the same lifters as an Evo. Not once have I bled the lifters on them and I have never had one have lifter tick. When it's time for me to put in the s2's in my Evo, I am going to resuse the stock lifters and not bleed them. It's completely against what most people say but hey, it's worked for me in the past so I really cant see why an Evo engine is going to work differently then an Ecotec.