In the lifter valley of my 92 L67 there is what I would call a spider. A piece of formed metal, bolted to the block, has arms that reach out towards the pushrods, and more or less covers the balance shaft. The 93 L27 I just opened up does not have one. It has what appeared to be, after only a VERY brief look, plastic retainers mounted down at the bottom of the valley where the pushrods pass to the lifters. Is there an advantage one way or the other? Is either neccesary?

Do the L27s have roller tip lifters in them?

The spider thing your talking about is the lifter guide retainer, and very neccesary. The lifter guides make sure the the rollers on the ends of the lifters line up on the cam right. However im not familar with L27s, I thought all of our motors had the spider thing in them.

I would think that a large piece of metal would be better than small pieces of plastic in a hi temp situation, but having not heard of any failures probably neither is superior to the other.

What kind of lifters does a 92 have? Should I snag them off the 93?