The machinist I’ll have to try that out. Let me test the hardness on the three different lifters I’ve got then I’ll shave off the one side.

 

I doubt it. Titanium is a pretty bad material for wear. Could test super easily with just a magnet though.

I'm thinking that it's the same lifters as standard, with just a DLC type of coating. Like what these guys do: https://www.ionbond.com/coating-serv...ne-components/

Edit: Looking at the link I provided, the tappet pictured looks awfully familiar, lol

 

Allow me to beat a dead horse: Has anyone priced out DLC coatings? Is it advantageous to buy the standard lifters and get them coated ourselves? Armaloy put the unit price of the lifters up pretty high.

Mind telling me why I didn’t think of the magnet trick?

I think you’re right though. Ti is sh***y for wear resistance.

 

I haven't priced it out, but we use various coatings in my industry (medical device), and Ionbond is well known for DLC and PVD coatings. Generally, the cost comes down to batch size. Processing a single batch can be expensive, but if you pack it full of parts, the per part price can be reasonable. The order quantity would be the determining factor.

 

Armaloy is the same. They have a $255 shop minimum or $30ish each for the lifters after $255.

Armaloy coated cams were estimated at $125 each. Well worth it IMO.

 

So this is interesting. What are you planning for oil squirters/jets to direct the oil at the lifters/cams? Will this not impact (lower) oil pressure more generally?

And two other uneducated comments. 1) shouldn’t you be looking for the cam and lifter to be of the exact same hardness, otherwise one will wear the other? and 2) what happens if (when?) the super-tough Armaloy coating chips off and ends up dispersed in the oil? What kind of precautions need to be taken to ensure that doesn’t happen?

 

Wish I was crafty in these ways.......this is the way

 

this maybe the solution we need. but also, intake cam adjusters seem to be the ones that fail first as well. do we have any suspicion that we have a feed issue with the intake side head cast and machining of the M156?

 

I was referring to the oil gallery at the back of the head that directly feeds the lifters and only the lifters.

Everything I have read about these engines seems to indicate that they have oil pumps that are overkill. In short, I think the pump moves more than enough volume. Remember that the oil gallery is also fed from the front of the cylinder head, so worst case scenario, the pressure equalizes and there is zero net flow through the supplemental oil line.

You know how awesome it is when you are taking a shower and you got the temperatures just right, and someone else in some other part of the house flushes the toilet?

That’s what I think is happening to the lifters. Every time the cam adjusters make an adjustment the pressure in the lifter galley Plummets.

I have been toying with the idea of oil squirters and do have some ideas. I’ll cover that at the end of this post.

1: Ideally you want them to be similar. You don’t want the cam too hard because it becomes brittle. You don’t want it to be too soft because it’ll wear out. The lifters are made out of a bearing race quality of steel, and they are likely at the peak of the Tough vs Hard scale. All metals that can be heat treated and annealed have a hardness vs toughness curve. As hardness goes up, toughness goes down.

So you want to choose a good balance for each metal so they can be at their best. There are ways of cheating like case hardening and induction hardening, which the cams also get.

2: I grilled the Armaloy guys about this for several volleys of correspondence. I asked every question I could think of, so that I could relay accurately. I was told: Basically, the Armaloy process penetrates into the sub surface of the parent material. It’s bond to the parent metal is stronger than the bond to adjacent molecules of chrome. So if/when it becomes compromised, it will likely stay put and not come off.

If I were to play the devil’s advocate and say that if all of it were to come off and end up in the oil, it would settle in the bottom of the oil pan, as chrome is not miscible in oil. Chromium is also a very dense element and does not stay suspended in emulsion for long at all. Furthermore, the amount of chrome on the cam is so thin, that all of it added up would amount to a few hundred milligrams combined.

I plan to run a break in period of 50-100 miles and change the oil afterwards.


Im still not sure why the intake cam adjuster is always worse than the exhaust. I doubt it’s a materials or manufacturing difference as compared to the exh adjuster.

I will have a much better idea when I confirm my suspicions about the mystery port on the back of the head and hook an oil pressure gauge in there for curiosity sake in the stock configuration.

If only I had access to a CT scanner. We could get a scrap M156 head and fill the oil passages with either barium or lead or mercury and get a nice 3D picture of the layout of the oil galleries. Aluminum is transparent to x-rays right?

Oil squirters:

1:
I would need aluminum valve covers to make it work, as I’d need to drill and tap holes in the valve cover to mount the oil nozzles.

2:
Back in the old days VW (here we go again) used oil squirters in their super charged G60 engine. I know they also used them in other engines, but this one I have intimate knowledge of. The squirters each had a spring loaded pressure valve that would cut off oil supply to the squirters below 1.5 Bar of oil pressure to maintain pressure to the rest of the engine.

I would use a similar arrangement with a spring loaded ball that could be adjusted for pop off pressure to allow oil to flow to the squirters only above a certain number.

3: Oil grade and Viscosity in the M156.

As engine oil is a touchy subject here, I am only going to say what I am going to do. I am not saying that you should do this. - Disclaimer over.

After installing the exterior feed lines to my engine I will be using a much thicker oil.

I believe AMG specced 0W and 5W oils for parasitic drag reasons. Thick oil really can make a difference In a bad way when shooting for fast revs and high HPs.

All of the engines I have ever seen that have the VW style lifter had noisy valve trains. All of the VAG products I have ever driven I used either 20w50 or 15w40 Rotella.

Those lifters were silent and my oil pressures were perfect at operating temp. 30ish psi at a hot idle and over 70 at cruise.

As I am not trying to get every last HP and rev out of my M156 all at once on a racetrack, I will be using 10W40 LiquiMoly with MoS2 already added to the oil. If that goes well I may go up to a 20W50 And use the additives. Tasos runs a 60 weight oil where he is because it is so hot. I live in NC and it’s hot as hell here in the summer.

Im sure I’ve forgotten something. I just can’t remember what it was.

 

No words yet on the DLC stuff for the repair plates.

Everyones hating on the black series lifters. Its not magnetic so not titanium.

 

I remembered.

The toilet flushing thing I was talking about earlier....

The entire oil supply to the head is fed through a small orifice the front of the head towards the center. I think the flow requirement is too great in the head to supply all of the crap that needs oil at the highest demand.

It’s like trying to inflate a blimp with a drinking straw. You might have plenty of oil pressure on the engine side of the straw, but on the cylinder head side of the straw, I bet there is less than 10 psi at a hot idle, and a significant pressure differential at high speed.

So I’ll fix it with a bigger drinking straw, and thicker oil.

 

Everyone is hating on the damn price. (Well I am, at least.)

 

I think I paid around USD$1000. Nowhere near what weistec sells them for.

 

Thats not bad, really. If DLC costs as much as Armaloy, for example, I’ve got $8 into each lifter plus an additional $30 each for plating.

38x32=$1216 US.

 

Thats got to be for the “regular” M159 lifters. The SLS BS lifters are more like $2k.

 

Ive seen pictures of his lifters. They’re the real deal.

Edit-^^Why does that sound dirty?

 

Well if someone can get real SLS BS lifters for only $1k, sign me up for that. I’ll take 10 sets, thanks.

 

I wish I had ten grand to burn. I got a machine shop to set up.

 

Well I’ll get back $20k when I resell them, so I’d call it an “investment”.

 

Nobody would buy them for 2k. They would just complain about it in the forums and call them a waste of money. Definitely a poor ROI

 

It was a joke. But seriously, you got SLS BS lifters for $1k where?

 

MB dealer it was like $1300 Canadian. Good relationship with the parts manager 👍
(also got me the 44o kit)

 

All the math and measurements are the same. Unless it’s religious and has different political beliefs it’s exactly the same.

 

that’s a good price. I’ve seen them on a few mb parts websites for ~$1300 US so that’s a steal
I should check what my dealer would charge usually they are so far off a reasonable price I don’t even bother checking them.

 

I just spit bourbon all over my phone.