Elite Race™ Solid Roller - The Next Generation Lifter From COMP Cams®

[CPG Marketing]

COMP Cams® produces the next level solid roller design for racers and high performance enthusiasts

The one constant when it comes to racers is that they are always trying to push the limits. And one of the first places they look is usually the engine. After all, the surest way to beat the guy next to you is to put more horsepower to the ground. The only problem is that when you push the horsepower limits you often wind up with broken parts and a very expensive repair bill.

Now COMP Cams® has responded with a new solid roller lifter that will help racers, engine builders and horsepower freaks get more power dependably without breaking the bank.

Called the Elite Race™ Roller Lifter, the new COMP® lifter is a clean sheet approach, developed to be the most technologically advanced unit in the market. It’s designed to withstand the punishment dished out by high-rpm race motors in everything from dirt track racing to drag strips to endurance events. And that’s more important than ever, considering the extremely aggressive camshafts many engine builders are now using that make good power but also put tremendous stress on the lifters and the rest of the valve train. Of course, other companies already offer high-end solid roller lifters; the difference here is the COMP® lifters ring in at about half the cost of other brands while also incorporating cutting edge design technology and newly developed features.

“A few years ago this kind of lifter technology only went into 24-hour races and the NASCAR Nationwide Series, but as things have progressed we realized there are a lot of other applications that can really use a high-quality solid roller lifter,” explains Billy Godbold of COMP Cams®. “Especially when you think about teams that are racing on a more real-world budget – dirt late model teams for example, or sprint cars or drag racers – they want to be able to put that part in there and run the race without having to worry about it.”

COMP® begins by constructing the body of these new lifters from 8620 alloy steel and uses a four column design – rather than the common thin-walled solid body – to improve rigidity while keeping the weight low. The unique four column design also does away with the traditional oil band, which helps reduce wear in the lifter bore. Finally, the bodies are REM-finished for a highly polished surface. This may seem like an unnecessary step, but COMP® engineers found that polishing the bodies removed any sharp edges left from machining that could create stress risers, and the smoothed body causes less wear in the lifter bore and improves the lifter’s ability to shed excess oil.

This CAD image shows the unique route taken by the Elite Race™ Roller Lifter's oiling system.

But it’s the guts of the lifter where the biggest improvements have been made. The roller rides on the industry’s largest axle that’s 0.400 of an inch in diameter and cut from a special tool steel. This means that 23 needle bearings – rather than the usual 16 – are used to disperse the load so a failure is less likely. Unlike most other lifters, the axle is also pinned on both sides. This actually makes it a stressed member of the body and keeps the ears on the lifter body from flexing under load. The large diameter axle also created a unique opportunity of which COMP® engineers took advantage to drastically improve the oiling system.

Instead of directing the oil to the side of the axle and hoping it works its way to the needle bearings like most lifters, the Elite Race™ Roller Lifter floods the center of the hollow axle with pressurized oil and then feeds the needle bearings from a hole in the center of the axle. This ensures that the bearings have a constant flow of cooling oil protecting them at all times.

Interestingly, COMP® went with a needle bearing design while many in the industry have shifted to a bushed roller lifter. While many may be tempted to simply go along with what may seem to be the next big thing and produce a “me too” lifter, COMP® engineers decided on a needle bearing roller system after extensive R&D into both designs. Put simply, COMP® says that needle bearings are still the best way to eliminate heat-producing friction. To minimize friction with a bushed roller system, you must cut the diameter of the axle, but by the time you’ve eliminated enough friction to even become comparable to a needle bearing roller system, the axle is so small that durability becomes a big concern. COMP® also experimented with DLC coatings to cut friction in bushed rollers, but the resulting gains were still short of the precision needle bearing design. In terms of eliminating friction, maximizing durability and delivering the highest value possible, the COMP® carefully designed and developed precision needle-bearing system is still the way to go.

“The axle is an extremely high-quality tool steel,” explains Godbold of the roller design. “Then with the larger diameter, the load can be spread over a larger area, which really helps. And also, the roller itself is unique. A lot of other companies use a hardened tool steel wheel, but that can wind up being too brittle. We went with a very high grade carburized steel, which is more flexible. By adding that flexibility, again it helps spread out the load a little bit more, and what you wind up with is a lifter that has excellent durability.”

And that is no idle boast. Godbold says that during durability testing the Elite Race™ Roller Lifters went through a grueling eight million cycle stress test. “To get that we had to spend a week with them in the Spintron® cell,” he says. “First we started out with four pairs of the Elite Race™ Rollers in one bank and a mix of our other lifters and some competitors’ lifters for the other four. And we were testing under some pretty harsh conditions. We were using an aggressive cam profile and spinning the engine up to valve float to really put some shock on the lifters.

“In order to get to the eight million cycles, we went through two Small Block Chevy Spintron® blocks. We had to replace the block because some of the other lifters that used a traditional oil band were wearing out the lifter bushings. We even had a fire in the dyno cell when one of the other lifters simply wore out and got so hot it caught the oil on fire!

“Then, after those eight million cycles we took the Elite Race™ Lifters out, and they still looked good, so we put them in a big block and did a couple million more cycles simulating drag racing runs. These lifters performed incredibly well and didn’t fail during that testing. Plus, they are also easy on the lifter bores, so the blocks in which they are installed should show less lifter bore wear, too.”

These lifters also feature removable pushrod seats for valve train optimization.

On the top side, COMP® also added a few innovations to the pushrod seats. The seats themselves are removable and can quickly be swapped out. This means that if you decide you need a set of lifters with offset pushrod seats to clean up the valve train geometry, you can quickly and inexpensively convert these lifters without having to purchase a new set. The seats also feed pressurized oil to the pushrods, so you can actually use the orifice in the pushrod seats to customize the amount of oil going to the rockers and springs.

“We’ve really taken a complete look at how we can build the very best solid roller lifter possible for our customers and come up with a completely new lifter,” Godbold says. “And by that, I mean cost, too. We didn’t cut corners, but we also didn’t build in any unnecessary costs. There are some companies that have coated lifter bodies, but these bodies did extremely well in our testing, so we decided to put our investment into the roller and axle.

“I think these lifters are a really good investment. They give a race team a real chance without having to spend a fortune. Plus, they are rebuildable, so if you take care of them they will just about last forever. Then you can take that money you have saved and put it somewhere else to give you that leg up on the competition.”

Check out the COMP Cams® website!