best lifters for ls2 600whp

mike4387 · 11-11-2012, 10:55 AM

After breaking numerous rocker arms and bending a few pushrods i think i may have a collasped lifter as well. I replaced rocker arms with new scorpion ones( i had the bad batch from 07) Cyclinder 1 seems to be making a lot of noise still and seems dead. The intake pushtube is not moving up and down when i remove the rocker arm and turn the motor over. Car has 600whp but i believe its running on stock lifters still. My question is what are the best lifters on the market right now. thanks in advance.

mike4387 · 11-11-2012, 02:05 PM

so i got the head off today the intake side lifter has exploded where it touch the cam, pieces of the lifter were stuck in the lifter housing and scarred up the walls so i will have to get that rehoned. car is in bad shape guess im going to have to pull the motor and take it apart, cam looks scarred up as well...not looking to good. iv heard good things about the ls7 lifters and comp lifters as well thoughts on those 2?

svede1212 · 11-11-2012, 04:00 PM

I was going to say I bet you have a trashed cam too. You're going to need that and your engine gone through to make sure that there isn't any metal piece in it somewhere. If a piece jams in the oil pump bypass it will trash your motor again.

I wouldn't have gone with any of those aluminum rockers. They aren't all that and aluminum is a lousy material for the application. Unless you have Trick Flow heads sticking with the stock rockers with a trunnion upgrade is a better option IMHO.

As far as rockers HP is irrelevant as it's spring pressure, cam lobe profile and RPM that tax a lifter. For "normal" RPM up to near 7k Lunati or Morel lifters are both good options and if you want to spend the money they also make "race" lifters that can handle even higher RPM.

mike4387 · 11-12-2012, 08:48 AM

Yeah iv done some research and I think I'm going with the lunati/morel lifters the street ones I won't be revving the car over 6500 and I like the fact that those are link bar so they can't turn in the cylinder. The one that shattered looks like it turned sideways on the cam. What pushrods do you run with the morels? Iv heard they are .050 inch taller so would I need to get a different pushrod?

svede1212 · 11-12-2012, 12:29 PM

Morel and Lunati are essentially the same thing and they are .050" taller to the cup. I think Morel makes both. I have Lunati street link bars and my heads are milled (w/stock head gasket). In addition the preload on both is a little lighter, .020"-.030" is recommended. I measured and I was about 7.275" so with a .025 preload I'm running 7.3 pushrods. I strongly suggest getting the Comp Cam's adjustable pushrod checker to verify instead of just slapping in a guess.

mike4387 · 12-14-2012, 12:50 PM

So I went with the lunati link bars street ones. Also picked up a new cam other one was scarred up. All in all everything with parts and labor is going to run me about 2k just hope machine work isn't too bad on the lifter bore.