ok boys after much re-search I now know what the deal is to get quality lifters.
we all know people have been fitting some sets some genuine , most aftermarket (****part) for example and they have not even worked from day one- at all. others have failed quickly or are noisy all the time.
It turns out there is now only one factroy making lifters in the world that is not in the third world. Regardless of brand all other lifters not from there are made in india, Pakistan, china,mexico or Taiwan etc.
The company you want is Johnson, sometimes called hylift johnson. sometimes these are boxed delphi but so are third world ones so I wouldnt use that as a method.
The factory mainly makes chevy lifters, which with our buick 215 derivatives obviously suit us.
in something reminiscent of the sopranos the company was bought out to prevent closure of it by a megacorp type merger but then the manager started selling of the machinery and parts on the qt and also selling the rejects as warranted A grade parts. He was then found out by the owner when employees complained about the newly refurbed machines being "dissapeared" and truckloads of product going missing.
All the stuff was then found in a massive warehouse 2000 miles away in florida lol.
Anyway that was a few years back and they are now sorted and the quality is right. Now sourcing these has not been easy as so many people are happy just to buy whats easiest and that includes the supplier. I have been told many times yeah they are good quality american lifters. when I ask the name- NO THEY ARE NOT!
My tactic became to ask the name and location of the supplier without telling them where I wanted them from. Only one got the correct answer and they also had the cam I wanted and that was camtech in Aus.
TBH it seems daft for them to go US-AUS-UK but they were only $96 AUS for 16 lifters so not bad but the shipping time and cost is a bitch.
If we could get hold of johnson direct and we knew the spec (or it was buik 215 spec for the rest of you? my 4.4 are more like chevy ones with oil feed for hollow pushrods) then we could actually get good lifters here that would last and support the last western factory too as it is struggling after being conned by the manager and hurt by cheap foreign labour.
Just thought I would share my hours of research and foreign phone calls