Today damo and myself pulled my 2332 down.It had done 9760 miles and i only pulled it out after i heard a little noise.It turned out it had broken 2 of the outer valvespings no 1 intake and no 2 exhaust.The bottom end looked like new all the bearings are in exellent shape unfortunatley 7 of the 8 lifters have pitted real bad,the cam lobes are in good shape?I'm a bit dissapointed with the failures but it's not a real big deal all the important bits are ok seems strange the valve springs breaking anybody thad issues with valve springs breaking they are from a well known company lifters the same,thats been around a long time it's not empi.

Oh man!!! Lifters too!

They were running as good as any on last inspection before your car. What oil have you been running since....Brad Penn I think which is what I used to run.....Hmmmm

Speak soon.

Brad Penn causing problems?

multiple answers here, poor oil lubrication, old cam with new lifters, viccy versa. wrong spring pressures for application

Seeing Col's all quiet here, I'll answer. No to all above....
New cam- Engle
New lifters- Sca
Blue printed full flow oiling
Engine Oil- Brad Penn 20W-50

Engine start proceedure; Oil system pressurised with Diesel 30W run-in oil, fuel primed and ignition set before cranking
30 min cam break-in run on single valve springs at over 2000 rpm.

This engine was dyno tuned and then run at two race meetings and a few hundred kilometers on the street. In that preiod it was pulled down twice for inspection and development purposes and the lifters had perfect 'no wear' indications.

Now if anybody can tell me how to improve this for longevety, I'm all ears.

After 30+ years building vw's, I can only put it to product failure, even though I've been using Scat lifters for many years.

Yep, just not enough case hardening on the lifters.

This was common for scat lifters a couple of years ago,
probably trying to save some money on manufacture,(less time in the manuf. process).

I have used older scat lifters,(20 years ago) that wore concave from many miles,
but never pitted because the case was at least .060" thick.(I think they are still in wally's engine!!)
Same with the mahle Black ones and the silver Febe german ones.
But any guess what they are like now.

The CB racing lifters are getting a good wrap at the moment,
and if you can afford the 400 or so euros, the UDO BECKER billet steel lifters are nice too.

One thing is for sure, the lifter problems (all types of engines, not just volksy) has been great for sales hype
on new oil companies on the scene like Brad penn and LAT, among others.

Cheers Dave, I fear these issues are just not going away.

I had an issue with Febi Bilstein Type IV hydraulic lifters recently too. Changed to a very nice looking set of VW Brazil and they seem fine.

My next type IV I'm building now has a set of black Brazilian 'unheard of' brand and they too look nice, but I used to think that of the Scat and Bilstein !!!!

Need to find some more black type 1's though, any leads???

Speaking of dollars, how's the ceramic lifters, heard they weren't much more, and very light.

Hey guys been busy,Humpty the brad penn is deffinatly not the cause of the broken springs and pitted lifters if there was an issuse with the oil the bearings and cam lobes would show it they are PERFECT! you could use the bearings again but i'm not i've got some coated ones to use and we measured the cam lobes 3 lobe measure the same and ! measures less than 1 thou less .As for the spings valve float/bounce could cause breakages but saying that my motor probably one of the lowest red lines around for a racing/street engine it has a 6600 rpm limiting button and very rarely sees 6500rpm!big over rev on the down change can break springs but i never do that kind of thing i'll leave that to the circut racers and revving an engine before having the engine parts reaching opperating temp(not just oil temp base metel temp)the noise i heard came after a cross town run and happened less than 1 Klm from home on a 130 k round trip so thats not it i recon it bad quality parts i'll be going to a set of psi spring retainers and locks,as for the liffters i've got a set of eaton lifters that i'm going to coat and i'll coat the cam while i'm at it and see where we end up.I'm crack testing all parts as we speak if they all test good should be back togeather in a month.

15 second quarters with a 1600cc and your gonna claim you are a component compasionate commuter...............

GOOD ON YA TIGER!

(insert suitable "smiley" icon here, unfortunately they broken tonight)

Tha 1600 ran well into the 14s..hehe.
Here you go....

Hello ,

I don't use lighter springs for the run in period, thats never made sense to me.
The way I see it correct tracking is more important so I run em in with the springs that they will be using.
Also if you shim the springs too close to coil bind then your asking for broken springs, broken springs will cause lifter failure , even if you use the worlds best lifters.

All the lifters were pitted and they were perfect at two inspections both in colour, pattern and shape, so I dont think it was the run-in with singles or the broken springs.

The only thing I can add re springs, is that they were an unknown age, they came with this engine, previously C95, tested fine and were used again.

I have to admit I always used to break-in with duals, just not tripples, but with the lifter/oil issues since my Volksrestore days, I followed proceedure to the letter on this break-in.

I used Eaton lifters in most of my engines with good results, hopefully again. You haven't 2 more sets available Col???

Correct tracking?And the lifters have not concaved they have just worn thru the very thin case hardening.As for the heads they were assembled by peter at swift race engines all the valve seats were cut to get exactly the same installed height.All valve springs were checked for open and closed pressure and are not shimmed close to coil bind.Like matty said the springs had an unknown age but they checked out good but?Any how i'm going to be using psi valve springs all they do is spings retainers and locks,I've been checking with a couple of V8 supercar teams and have heard very good things about the psi products so i'llgive them a go.

Good move.

Fair enough if the lifters aren't tracking some lifter damage could be expected but not in the form of pitting IMO. Surely the two broken spring lifters would show more issues than the others.

Still think product failure.

Col, any more Eaton lifters for type 1?

No matt no more lifters i got these ones from u back in the volks restore days should have bought more I think they were only $80

Anybody got a time machine?

hey matt who owns that old chop top now ................... tried to by it many moons ago i believe it was advertised at vvd around maybe 15 year ago

Rod Richardson now owns the chop top.
...it probably IS close to 15 years since matt raced it...1995 matt?
It has been totally re-done twice, but now looks great in gloss black with the detailed Fuch wheels.
http://www.dak-a-takracing.com.au/otherteams.htm 

i knew it ........................ doh ;(

i tried for months to get that car but i cant remember i think matty was on a boat or something and i couldnt get in contact with him at that time the co-owner left a message with him well i think he did good to see it went to a good home

Hey Col, let us know what part numbers you end up with regard to springs/retainers/collets that fit the Volksy valves.

I have some here at the moment for a job, but no part numbers.
Craig from Crankshaft got them from Bill's (PSI)and machined the CB retainers to suit the new springs,
plus a very nice lower locator.
Will try to find some time to get a pic.

Mmm,nickies...

would love too dave but i think the price has changed a little i believe it was $6000 originally no motor but it would be a nice thought

Everything has a price.

Dave, Is that Andrew Murphy's Engine? The barrels look good! How do they check out?