The noise won't matter until it fails and then you'll know it as it'll be too late. Mine made absolutely NO noise and then started a slight 'ticking' that progressed to a louder noise that then became a 'chirping' noise .... all in less than 10 to 15 miles .... everything in the cam chest had to be replaced at that point....so according to that, you have to pre-emptively change them out or bite the bullet once they go with much more expense. If you're under warrenty....ride on, unless you're afraid of being left on the side of the road. If you're out of warrenty, you may want to adopt the mindset of changing out internal parts (lifters) as a maintenance item on a mileage schedule. I'm still having trouble wrapping my mind around this, but have just learned a expensive lesson that has me leaning in that direction. spyder
I also just learned the expensive way as one of my lifters failed in the same scenario Spyder describes. My bike has approx. 30,000 miles and of course no warranty. I had noted a slight additional ticking in the engine and had complained to the dealer. The response was , "just usual tappet noise." On the way home from a short weekend trip I noted the ticking was about the same, but now there was also an on again, off again chirping noise at idle. This chirping was very minor and went away with any throttle increase. Since the bike ran fine otherwise I continued on my way. Little did I know that the chirping was the seized tappet skidding on a cam lobe. I suspect that even if I had stopped my trip at that point it was probably too late.
I decided to replace the stock 255 cams, but since its my dime I will upgrade the other cam chest components. I decided to go with a Feuling billet cam support plate and high vol oil pump, as well as their HP+ roller lifters. They claim their cam support and h/v pump decreases engine temps by +- 20 degrees and provides more oil to the pinion shaft and rod bearings. I'm also using SE roller rocker arms, SE forged rocker supports, SE high performance cam bearings. Although not using different cams I thought I might as well go go ahead and install the SE Tapered Quick-Install Adjustable pushrods just in case. Rob
UPDATE: My dealer had gone to bat for me with Deeley's HD Canada over the failed lifter. After a week of negotiations Deeley's has just offered to provide replacement parts. Unfortunately, as I had wanted the bike repaired asap I had the dealer order all the performance parts last week. This is however, the second time Deeley's has stepped up on an repair issue, and although outside of the warranty period did at least offer to replace a failed part. Bike is still being repaired, so not sure what they will cover now...I'm hoping the cost of the cams.
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Topic: Lifters (Read 18539 times)