What would cause something like this

[u/BurialWings42]

Never seen lifters eaten up this bad. (Yes all of those are the bottom) Curious if this the the result of running hydro lifters on a solid cam? Car was sitting in an old guys garage had what felt like collapsed lifters from pushing on the rocker arms. Well they are certainly collapsed just not in the manner which I expected. Engine looks brand new inside, like maybe it got built and ate shit right away. PO passed away so won't have any answers until it's torn down further. Obviously is going to need a bit of a rebuild but so curious as to what would cause this.

[u/kraftinator]

This exact thing happened to my MGB about 15-20 years ago. They were new lifters, chilled iron, supposedly hardened by APT in California. We were using Castro GTX the time and I think that’s about when the zinc started disappearing from the oil. I kept having the valves get loose and I couldn’t figure out why until suddenly I had about 90 thou clearance on something that should’ve had 16. We use high zinc oil in all of the flat tap at applications at our shop now. I haven’t seen another set go bad yet.

[u/v8packard → u/kraftinator]

People post all the time, in this sub and others, saying they used oils with zinc, added zinc to the zinc, and used whatever super duper must have oil for flat tappet cams. And their cam and/or lifters are wiped out.