PRI 2018: Isky Racing Cams EZ-Roll Bushing Lifters Hold Up To Abuse

When it comes to lifters, the latest and greatest new technology is bushing bearings. However, Isky Racing Cams hasn’t just stopped with a bushing and called it good. Instead Isky has further improved the bushing bearing with their new EZ-Roll Helix design, which uses advanced materials and design to go beyond a typical bushing bearing.

Using a proprietary Next-Gen Alloy and Directed NanoLube Architecture, the Isky Helix design directs oil where it’s needed most, while providing advanced protection under extreme performance conditions that would eat other lifters alive.

Espousing the benefits of these new lifters was John Ens, cousin and teammate/Crew Chief of Dave Schroeder. The pair have what is arguably one of the nastiest street engine combinations on the planet, and have proven it by winning Drag Week. “These lifters are the best things you can run in a radical street engine. We have had zero valvetrain issues since we started running the Isky bushing-style lifter,” Ens says.

“We have a 1.100-inch lift cam on this engine, which is ‘fairly radical’ for a street motor, and we’ve had failures with every other lifter we’ve run. The Isky has solved all those problems.”

In addition to the demands placed on the engine from such an extreme camshaft, the team doesn’t have the luxury of letting the engine come up to ideal conditions in the pits, make a pass, and then shut it down, but drive it in all kinds of conditions. “The thing that a lot of people don’t think about, is that we run with [engine] temperatures from 50 to 200 degrees Fahrenheit, and the amount of thermal expansion a motor like this goes through makes for a lot of lash increase. That’s a lot of abuse on the engine,” says Ens. “The Isky bushing handles that better than any needle bearing or bushing bearing we’ve run.”

Dave Schroeder's Drag Week Corvette is probably harder on engine parts than any other street-driven car. With a 1.100-inch lift camshaft and tons of nitrous, the engine components do not live an easy life. Crew chief John Ens credits the Isky EZ-Roll Helix lifters with curing their continual valvetrain longevity issues.

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Greg Acosta

Greg has spent nineteen years and counting in automotive publishing, with most of his work having a very technical focus. Always interested in how things work, he enjoys sharing his passion for automotive technology with the reader.
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