THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN BUSHED AND NEEDLE-BEARING ROLLER LIFTERS

One of the greatest things about HOT ROD Drag Week™ is the way racers think up recipes to tackle the bipolar task of the hell week: to go fast as possible while maintaining a semblance of reliability. Drag Week™ challenges builders to find a way to have their cake and eat it, too, as there’s no other option to make it to Friday. With that comes a wealth of innovation in the recipes we’ve seen on track, and a notable shift in the ingredients lately has been in roller-lifter technology. While bushed lifters have been on the market for several years, it was the rise of their usage in Drag Week™ combinations that really caught our attention.

The valvetrain is one of the biggest weak points that we’ve come across when traditional drag-racing builds are brought to the 1,000-mile, weeklong enduro. What was traditionally designed around near-constant high-rpm usage, with constant maintenance to keep an eye