I posted on here a few days ago about my customers Oldsmobile and the lifters allowing too much oil to go to the top end causing excessive smoke out of the exhaust. I’ve checked oil pressure and I’m at 55 to 60 psi at idle which is way too much. I’ve tried contacting the company that sent me these lifters they say they don’t know about this issue. Someone gave me the number to a company that directly sells Johnson lifters but I have read on here even those have problems oiling too much at the top. Any ideas?

 

Is that 50/60 once the engine is completely warm?

 

50 to 60 at beginning of start up. Not warm yet

 

Cold, you are going to get those pressures. You need to see what it levels off at when fully warmed up. How long has the engine run for? If this is a new build, it takes time to burn all of the junk out of the exhaust system that usually collect when an engine is removed and reinstalled.

 

My truck with a crate L31 350 has 80lbs cold and 50lbs warm cruise. You're fine

 

I’ve pulled the valve covers and there is oil shooting out over the fenders from the excessive pressure from the lifter. There’s so much oil up there it’s drowning the valves.

 

My engine (that was rebuilt in the 90s) has 50-ish PSI at startup and runs around 40 PSI during warm cruise. I don't think your pressures are unreasonable for a fresh build.

 

I guess pressure isn’t my problem it’s the metering in the lifters. It’s shooting oil through the pushrods and drowning the top end. I’ve been through 2 sets of lifters trying to solve this issue

 

If you have the old lifters, is it possible to swap the metering disc onto the new lifters? I'm assuming the old lifters didn't do this and therefore have a smaller hole in the metering disc.

 

sadly I don’t have them. I trashed the old ones not thinking this would be such an issue. I wish there were just metering disks I could purchase from somewhere

 

The Johnson lifters are the best on the market. If you have true Johnson lifters and still pumping too much oil to the top, you have another problem.

 

What could be the issue other than lifter metering?

 

Not sure but have used way too many Johnson lifters without any issues. Have you used a verified set of Johnson lifters and I'm not talking about what Clay Smith says. Clay Smith could have sold a set of lifters and somebody swapped them out for Chinese junk and returned them. Far fetched but until you try a set of verified Johnson lifters from HyLift Johnson/Topline I won't believe they are the problem.

 

I have 15 used Johnson lifters that you can buy and use the metering plates out of if you want to try that.

 

Wouldn't restricted pushrods be way easier than pulling the intake and lifters? Maybe I'm stupid
Is there excessive play in the guides? Got seals? .
My new engine has 80-100 cold, and the biggest problem I have is leaking valve covers (stock repro the spacers and 2 gaskets). I'm going back to the cast aluminum tall and a catch can. Hopefully, that helps.

 

Sounds like an excellent idea to me.

 

My 455 with Crower lifters also shoots oil over the fenders if I run it with the valve cover off. Is this considered excessive? I have not seen any issues with it at this point.

 

As I posted in the other thread, I use plates with one offset 0.055" hole, solid lifters, stock rockers. Back in the 1970's when I first used the block, I drilled and tapped each feed hole at the lifters for an 8-32 set screw having a 0.040" hole, red Loctite on them. You can tap directly but the factory feed holes are a bit small (0.125") for an 8-32 tap and you may break the tap. Drill them a few thousandths larger first. Spec is 0.136" = #29. I still have two cam and lifter sets, from the 1970s. One cam is the big Comp XE hydraulic and the other is a custom Comp solid, in case a reader of this thread is interested. Both are broken in, lifters kept in order.