I am with Bill. When a guy wants to use a flat tappet solid cam these days, I drill and drill, and educate, and drill some more, that, it is way more common for them to fail thses days. The lifters of of suspect quality, unless you spend $300-$700 on some high end stuff, which, totaly makes using a flat tappet cam not worth it, at that price. The main reason for the failures is oil related. No zink, magnesiumn, or other high pressure lubes in the oil. Rottella T, and a bottle of Comp or Crane additive, will eliminate the majority of problems, but will not save a soft lifter.
This is one of those situations, where, the engine shop is damned if he does, and damned if he doesn't, with regards to "covering" this problem. Comp likely won't do a thing, possible give a discount on the new parts, but they absolutely will not pay for any labor or the sort. As engine shops, these things happen from time to time. As far as being damned if he does, he will loose a bunch of money, and time, and work for free, for a problem that isn;t his fault. He didn;t make the lifter or cam. I realize he chose the parts, so, some guys think that makes him responsible. He is damned if he doesn't do anything, as is the case, because now your bad mouthing him online, and I am sure to everyone that will listen. I had a similiar situation happen a few years back, and, it cost me $350 out of my pockets, for a cam, lifter, rings, bearings, and gaskets, plus a full day and a half, tearing down, re-hong, cleaning everything, and re-assembling his engine. Was it my fault? No way. The report I got from "spies" if you will, just guys I knew, that knew them, and were there when they ran it, said it was a totaly rediculous scene, of 3 or 4 guys, arguing how the distributor goes in, and how to time it, etc etc. After about an hour of back fires, and carb fires, and cranking and cranking, and trying this spot, and that spot with the diastributor, they finaly got it to run, and let it run for 5 minutes at 1500, then they all stood around, listening to it idle, drinking beer, saying how cool it sounded. But I did fix it, because I KNOW what will happen if I did;t, this very thing. The guy ended up wounded the engine later anyhow, it was a 468 8-71 pump gas engine, that, never went to the dyno, and was run on 92, and, he had his 2 friends, Dumb and Dumber helping him tune it. Well, it made so much power, that they disconnected the secondaries, on holleys, and, did 6000 rpm burnouts, leaned the piss out of it, and melted some pistons, and knocked out some bearings. Expected me to fix it again, and I said NO WAY. It was detonated, you did it, I told you it needed to be dynoed, you refused, now you see what happens when they aren't tuned right. Well, needless to say, i was a jerk, and a crook, etc etc. You can;t win them all I guess. Come to find out later, that the other shop he tooki it to, told him exactly what i did, and, refused to work on it, after he told him he wouldn't dyno it. And, I got work out of the other shop, doing cyllinder head porting for him, as he was impressed with my work. So, it worked out in the end, and I got a bit of satisfaction out of the whole deal, but still.
Long winded, sorry, but, I personaly don't think the engine shop should be put on the hook for this. I think you will find, most won't, at least they will give you semi break, because they feel bad, but to expect them to pay for it, and eat the whole thing, is wrong.
Frank
Advanced Performance
www.get-ap.com