Ferrari Hydraulic Lifters 149750, a detailed look

Hey Dave, those steam turbine systems were my responsibility from start to finish, thermo, aero, lubrication, seals..... I got a spec for output power required and went from there.

Plus, are you forgetting my time with Campbell's Soup Co. I remember we talked about it. I designed pumps for beef stew. Couldn't mash the potatoes and carrots. And my favorite, the prototype Raviolio machine. That was the project I learned about EDM on. Oh, and the high speed label machine. Designed by someone else and I explained to the boss why it would never work. But you haven't done anything until you design a machine to make scrambled eggs. (That one wasn't my baby, but it was pretty strange.) Hell, and that was just a summer job after my junior year. Campbell's wasn't happy I didn't come back after graduation.

And then there was the time at UARC as a wind tunnel and hot flow test engineer. Summing it all up, it taught me that I didn't like design.

Here's the whole concept for my thing with mod so FBB can just push the lifter out with his thumb. But, like you say, today I'm only an idea man. I don't get my hands dirty. You can take it from here.

P.S. You do know that even though my design is superior, I'm just bustin'.
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Mine is just put in your thumb and pull out a plumb. You insert the lifter in the holder, place the holder in the cap (or fluid collector) and step on a foot pedal. Nothing to tighten or loosen. No other tools necessary. A quick operation.

FBB's idea is like pulling teeth. Maybe some dental pliers would work. (And we go round and round and round in the circle game.)

 

Simple and fast to operate. If you were doing this all day....... I'm making a machine. Your making a tool.

 

Simpler version of Johns might be zerk fitting on the fixture operated by a grease gun. Wouldn't need so much volume as a master cylinder would provide.

That being said, I'm down for Dave's collet tool. I don't think you could damage anything even if you tried and seems like an easy to use solution.

Let me know when I can order one.

 

Just do the exchange with the dealer. The amount of time you guys are wasting on this would cause a shop to go bankrupt. How much time and effort is this costing if you were billing it out to a customer? Just be done with it already. What ever tool you guys come up with, I won't be a buyer. I don't have the time to putz around with lifters. I get the Ferrari units and im done with it.

And by the way, there is an alternative lifter that will work from another manufacturer.

 

You have way too much time on your hands. That is not an insult, it's jealousy. I wish I had the time you do to sweat every little detail. Cars would never leave the shop!!

 

We still don't know the extent to what is required maintenance for 355 lifters. Pete had an issue with SRI's rebuilt lifters which called Dave Helm's whole lifter swap program into question. He is super anal and 1 failure is too many for him. Considering how picky Helms is how certain can one be that dealer sourcing is the way to go? Are these routinely replaced? Do they fail? Is basically a disassembly, clean and reassembly really all that is needed?

 

Nerd or loser? Nope. Inquisitive yes, a little bit on the side of over analyzing for sure, but I come from a pressure cooker world driven by a very short driving season. People want thier toys in the summer months and shops must deliver those toys in a timely manner. I cant be playing with small items and billing the customer for it. Heck I'm a 42 year man who still plays with Lego!!

 

Really, other than the springs and the check valve ball/seat there isn't anything in their that can fail. Dirt/sludge in the check valve would be the most likely candidate. After all, these aren't a unique design and they last 100s of thousands of miles in other cars. I'd bet such Ferrari failures are, as usual, from lack of use. And I agree with Howie, shouldn't be hard to find a replacement. I bet INA has a drop in that would work fine.

Ferrari exchange is (or was back in 2013) about $82/tappet. 14 were replaced in my car as part of the major when I bought it. So what's that at shop labor, 1/2 hour per tappet to test, disassemble, assemble and test? Seems little up side for a shop owner but significant down side since, as you point out, DH had problems.

Honestly, this whole design exercise is basically mental masturbation from my point of view. But, my design also acts as a tester as well. I mean, before you take it apart you need to know if it's bad and after you repair it you need to know if it's good. Just add the little test block and pump that sucker up and see if it stays hard or does it squish right down again? I mean, you aren't going to take one of these apart, clean it and put it back in the engine and hope it works, are you?
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Yeah really. We don't have a maintenance interval from Ferrari. I have never had one fail. On chevys they are cheap we replace them like $60bucks for 8. $82 bucks each is $4000 for me. And yeah having DH fail on such a simple job calls into question that simplicity. I suspect there is more to it than would 1st appear. I don't think squishing with my finger is a good test. I might squish harder than you. What is the bleed down time vs. pressure? Why maintain them at all? There is filtered oil circulation with use so they should not fail in theory. Why clean them? We got so many detergents in oil today we can use it as parts cleaner. Is this mental masturbation or servicing the lifters a good thing never mentioned in the Ferrari WSM just like manual removal of Fuel injectors and professional servicing are creeping into the lexicon of DIY Ferrari major services? Howie is a pro. How often does he have to swap out lifters per 100 cars he sees? one? one in a 1000? We need some data.

 

Like Howie my time and warranty way precludes the likelihood of rebuilding these in house. As for failure rate? Maybe well under 1% that I have observed personally and those were not obvious, just a gut feeling reaction to replace.

On the other hand, the great Porsche machine is now getting an alarming number of failures of lifters in 996/981 motors, my personal opinion being that it stems from the basic engine design and related to the IMS issues as well as the boxer layout, poor oil change practises

Kudos to Dave, he manages to create the longest much ado about nothing threads for our entertainment and his leisure!

 

I don't know. This is a good thread that gets us thinking about a part we never considered. Back in the dark days of Ferrari-list serve there was zero information. We have gone from assembly mark majors to cam timing, pro fuel injector service, to exploring the lifters. This is how we make our cars better and more robust. Luca called the 348 the worst Ferrari ever. Yes, he helped build the worst ever but we fixed the 348 without Ferrari's help to make it a super robust and reliable platform by attacking one issue at a time and the stooges are not done yet.

 

It is good to hear from a pro that this is a non-issue. I have always thought of lifters in a very primitive way. If I didn't hear ticking I assumed them OK. With chevy's we never test them or clean them. They are so cheap we just replaced them at every motor refresh. Thanks for the datapoint.

 

Other failure modes? Just thinking about other possibilities now that I'm awake, scored piston, crack piston or check valve seat, pitted check valve ball or seat.

Like FBB, I don't agree with the "push on it with your finger test". It will show a really bad lifter but what about one that doesn't collapse until there is 100 or more lbs pressure on it? It's like a cooling system leak. If you have a hole in the radiator it will leak just trying to fill it. But a clamp not tightened sufficiently may not leak when cold. Get it hot and it won't hold pressure. You need to test at the operating pressures.

Personally, I'd just replace rather that repair. I wouldn't chance having the do the job twice, even on a Honda. Someone else may feel differently.

I think lifter failure may be more common than we may think. INA makes after market lifter/tappets/cam followers, what ever you want to call them, for just about every European car you can think of and they aren't that expensive. Considering the typical Ferrari tax on things $80 should tell you something about real cost. I don't think there is anything magical going on here. Pretty simple device. Pretty simple to understand. Don't over think it. I don't know when most cars went to roller tappets, but in 2006 BMW was still using this type tappet and was using the same part (i.e. same part number) as far back as 1999 in just about every 6 cylinder engine they made, 2.3, 2.5. 2.8, 3.0.

Not something I'm going to worry about.

 

Welcome ;=)

Believe me, cars that have come in with a 'tapping' noise have never turned out to be a lifter, certainly not just a lifter. Exponential $$. I might give an upsell option of a set of rebuilt lifters with major engine work.