What do you guys think about these Chinese roller lifters? (Retrofit hydraulic) ? I know it's hit or miss with some stuff. Guys are having great luck with the chinese turbos, rods, cranks, etc. For $200, these are less than half the price of Comp Cams.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/All-GM ... uckQ5fPartsQ5fAccessories


-- Joe

Chinese lifters! Its kinda like buying a speciality tool @ Harbor Freight that you might use once in a while. Works great when you need it but as a daily use tool it would'nt last. In your case do you what to trust your engine with lifters that may last a few thousand miles or the American engineered and made bullet proof Hyd.Lifter that will last the long haul. Ya get what you pay for!! For $200.00 more bucks your peace of mind has to be worth that, plus the time and expense if you go cheap to replace with the more expensive lifter next time. Just a thought. I.E I teach wood shop and many of the big stationary tools that I thought were American made are imported off shore from China. Trust me they are having a problem running 8 hours a day 5 days aweek for 36 weeks. My Powermatic thickness planner American name chinese built that is 2 years old the repair guy says its the chinese bearings and motor. This unit replaces my 1936 Oliver thickness planner. 1936 this before Hitler got real crazy. The only reason we got rid of it was its age and lack of certain safety features.

Pro comp heads are made there, aren't they? I have read so many opposite opinions about them, it makes my head spin. I think a lot of the negativity has to do with bias, plain and simple. I am willing to pay more for a USA made product if it is actually better. The difference in labor rates makes it awful hard to compete.

Engine parts have been coming out of Asia for years. Not sure why everyone is all twisted up about it now.
Scat
Eagle
Manley
Sealed Power (India)


People knock the PBM, Pro Comp, and Patriot heads, but they are an extremely good bang for the buck. Would I rather have a Brodix, Dart, AFR or Edelbrock? Absolutely, but not everyone can afford them.
Sadly, the Chinese are figuring out quality, and mass production at a lightning fast rate. If the quality is not yet where it needs to be, I suspect it will be soon.

I have read on the forums people being told to avoid the foreign made pro comp junk and at least move up to 'Patriots'. I guess the name and logo can fool people. P.T. Barnum was right, there really is a sucker born every minute. I was always very adamant about buying USA but now that I can't even wrap my balls in a pair of USA made underwear, I just look at the label and shrug. BVD's and roller lifters are apples and oranges though aren't they.

I'm sure quality is getting better, kinda like the way Japanese products were viewed back in the 50's and 60's. I was just reminded a few minutes ago about recent Toyota recall and the accelerator issue. That component that is responsible for the recall is made in Elkhart Indiana. I've repaired enough off shore built furniture and the frustration with our machines that my attitude has become a little negative. Price over quality.

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Great response!

Sorry every time someone mentions China I think of this

Hey Vetron, sorry, off topic, but you would appreciate these old warhorses. They were old when I started using them 33 years ago.

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Good responses.

For stuff like cylinder heads, it's easy to compare heads based on port shape, flow, springs, etc.

For other components like a lifter, how do you compare?

Comp cams lifters are made by sealed power right, so they are made in India. Ebay lifters from China. I'm not sure who makes a US lifter. Maybe Howards? But then again, at $300 for Howards probably not either.

Curious though if anyone has used these, or know somebody who has. I'm one of those people that doesn't think a link bar is a $200 add on for a lifter. Comp cams is raping people.. $200 for OE type hyd roller, but $435 for retrofit? come on.

-- Joe

Morel is good just not cheap. I remember CFI-EFI posting about a Chevy GM V6 hr lifter that would work as a retrofit type.

Comp imo is overrated/priced. Id buy a custom ground cam if I had to but not much else. They are so big many parts are outsourced and it would seem hard to keep tabs on QC.

On the ebay lifters have no experience with that particular one.

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EXCELLENT!!!!!!!!!

As much as I hate imported parts I'll admit I use Eagle/Scat cranks/rods when the customer's $$$ dictates. I hate the fact that I have to triple check every thing but they have been in use by a lot of engine builders here for a long time with good rusults when the part you buy from them is within spec (seems like that is getting harder and harder to do).

A little story about Chinese lifters thou. About 6-7yrs ago one of our warehouses sold/slipped us some Chinese made flat tappet solid lifters. The agreement we had with them was the lifters were soposed to be Stanadyne or Johnson....

We buy in bulk and they come in a flat cardboard package with 250 lifters to a pack. Once I opened up the package and started cleaning up the first batch I noticed that none of them had any kind of champer on the edge. I started looking really hard at them and you could see how rough the finish was everywhere... at any rate I called the warehouse about it and they said that the mfgr was cutting finishing tech's to keep up with demand and that the lifters were fine.

We knew better just from the looks, so we called my cam grinder at Reed Cams and he told me that his new shipment of flat tappet lifters looked excally the same way.... We felt better after hearing that, so we put them in 2 limited class oval track engines we were building at the time. 2 weeks later the First engine wiped out the cam on the dyno. Put a new cam and lifters in it and it wiped the 2nd cam out during break in... by this time it was everywhere thru the cam mfgrs that there were thoudands of sets of these shitty Chinese lifters floating around the USA and they had about a 90% failure rate.... Reed told me that every set they sold failed.... I pulled the 2nd motor apart and threw the lifters back in the box and sent them back to our warehouse where the owner finally admitted to sending them to us becasue there was a nation wide shortage of the real thing....

I've seen in person the hyd roller tappets that Cal Auto Transpeed (CAT) sells. They are JUNK. They look like they were cast out of recycled tin cans... The tie bars were riveted on to the lifter body with what looks like a hammer was used. The wheel looked like it was held on a 80grit sander to finish it. Keep in mind this is the stuff he was showing in his booth at PRI year before last.

In less than 6500RPM (350ish open pressure) applications I have been using the hyd roller lifters that Competition Products/Howards sells (made by Federal Mongrel). For $298.00 it's a proven good USA made lifter. I'm going on 25-30 sets used over the past 10yrs without a failure.

With only $98.00 difference in price I'm in no hurry to try the Chinese roller lifters.
Will

[quote]
rklessdriver wrote:
The agreement we had with them was the lifters were soposed to be Stanadyne or Johnson....

Ha! Memories. I worked, chamfering tappets for Stanadyne in '73. I was just out of the Army, my uncle was a foreman there and I didn't have any career goals yet. The huge machine from the stoneage sprayed hot oil in your face, roasted you and caused hearing loss while grinding 6 lifters at a time. You received a bonus for exceeding your daily quota. I am ashamed to say I threw many unchamfered tappets in the 'out' bin just to make my quota. The factory closed and the machines were sent overseas shortly after I left there.