When I did mine some time ago the lifters had jammed in or close to there assembled state of compression! When the factory assembled these engines originally they relied on the lifters to compensate for mass production tollerences leaving the some engines with the lifters compressed to almost 1/3 of the pistons stroke.
With 250k on the clock my engine was not so fresh out of the oven so the oil that settled in the tops of the lifters had plenty of opportunity to build up a nasty layer of crap on the cylinder walls stoping the lifter extending to its correct length! I tried cleaning them and blowing them out but I found that they still jammed in the top end and the spring had also settled to some extent! With my high ratio rockers and push rods fitted I could almost remove the push rod there was so much clearence!
New lifters fitted, problem solved!
As a side note, I didn't have the funds for new lifters on the day so I had to reassemble the stock rockers and lifters and noticed an improvement in performance just from degumming the lifters with another small improvement after fitting new lifters and the HR rockers! The new lifters I fitted were aftermarket ones from repco, I don't recomend these lifters! They bleed down when the car is parked for any period of time and one of them bleeds down when running! I hav a god awful rattle on start up that peeves me right off!
Never underestimate the importance of good lifters in good working order!
Go genuine or get the ones from mace and you will never look back!
