Harley sportster/evo lifters?

[KnightEngines]

I'm building a new motor for my personal bike over winter, looking at lifters - suppliers want stupid $$ for lifters, like $400 for 4 damn lifters.
I assume they're just a common lifter in boxes that say harley & therefore cost 3x as much.
Haven't pulled it down yet, so can't measure up yet - is there anything special about them or are they just an ls1 type lifter?

[BillK]

K,
If they are the lifters that look like a Chevy Hydraulic roller lifter I have one customer that uses the Chevy lifters and has had no issues even with some fairly big cams. I have been getting him the ones from E-loy. Part number is VL115

[Truckedup]

A different point of view...may be bias, or not, you be the judge
https://youtu.be/fMoRaHJRrhc

[hoodeng]

Evolution 1984-99 big twin engines use their own design lifter, it has no automotive equivalent. Same as 1984 to 91 Sportster, which for the Sp then went to a enclosed roller design [Chev Ford etc] this was also not interchangeable to an automotive equivalent. Pre 99 big twin and pre 91 Sportster used the roller in dual tasks, first was to follow the cam profile, second was to use the side faces of the roller to run in a guide channel [lifter block]to keep it square to the cam lobe, in both instances the roller ø is larger than the lifters ø.

You can get good lifters and you can get cheap lifters, the cheap one is not the same as the good one. It also depends what your intention for your engine is, street touring rarely over 4k or so, factory lifter or similar will suffice. If you are going to be more demanding on the engine the lifter will go up scale in quality [and price], top end lifters have never been cheap for these things nor has a cheap alternative to the better quality ones come on the market to my knowledge.[ I get through quite a few of these things.] More lifters are killed by weak or inadequate valve springs than any other condition apart from contamination.

Lifters for this application have been made by a number of manufacturers, some of these manufacturers are common in automotive lifter production like Johnson and Lifeline etc, they make lifters for pretty much any application you wish, do their products automatically interchange based on dimensions? no, the products are task specific even when a micrometer tells you different.

Cheers.

[KnightEngines]

It's a 94 sportster evo engine, was an 883, got wiseco 883 to 1200 conversion pistons & I'll bore the barrels.
I'm going to make spacers to turn them into short travel lifters with just enough travel to not hold the valves open on a cold engine.
Aiming around 120 crank hp, heads are almost done, ported 2012 883 heads with 1.78/1.42 valves, flow 255/180 @ .600"
Cams will be redshift 605/585.
I have Ti retainers & good springs already, valves are light 7mm stem.

Sounds like I can use quality ls1 type lifters since I'll be negating most of the travel anyway.

[Super_Stock]

Get a KZ1000, live a little

[emsvitil]

Somebody here:

http://xlforum.net/forums/

probably knows what would work..........

[BOOT]

I'm going to make spacers to turn them into short travel lifters with just enough travel to not hold the valves open on a cold engine.

Sounds like I can use quality ls1 type lifters since I'll be negating most of the travel anyway.

S&S sells four lifter spacers, not cost effective if you have a V8 obviously. Found them when researching spacers awhile back and saw Harley guys using ls lifters.

[hoodeng]

Your 94 engine uses a lifter specific to your series engine, 18526-89A used from 91 to 99, .9035"ø, 2000 onward .8425"ø same as Twin cam.

S&S supply 330-0288 lifter sets for these engines, they do not come with lifter limiters, they supply limiters manufactured for .612" id lifters 33-5338, if you are using any other brand lifter it will need this id to use their product.

I have used Calmax in the past to manufacture limiters with good results, typically limiters are .115" thick.

Setting the cold start point of a lifter at zero lash can cause the lifter to be a little rattly when hot, this will go away with time, it is caused by micro bubbles being trapped in the lifter. You can also set the lifter at three to four flats loose and purge the lifter with running, then set to zero lash when the lifter shuts up. With setting at cold zero lash i set the pushrods hard to turn with fingers, riding lifters can cause cold running issues.