fresh cam, is my oil too thin?

Get an old valve cover and cut out the center. Warm the engine up. Put the cover on and start the engine. Loosen each rocker until noisy, tighten until noise ceases and 1/4 turn more. No more, no less. I use a Sharpie and mark 12, 3, 6, and 9 o'clock on the socket to make it easier. Flattened a lobe on 2 cams in high school with the cold engine/lash, rotate the crank 180, do these rockers, rotate the crank 180, do these rockers, blah, blah, blah, until an older race engine builder showed me the errors of my ways. "No more, no less" was his specific words. Haven't had a flat lobe since and only recently started adding zinc out of fear from all the recent hype with flat tappet cams.

 

Not surprised. I've been reading this thread, and my first thought was flat cam. I bought a Comp Cam once, and it went flat on multiple lobes within 100 miles on a newly built 455 Pontiac (which was NOT cheap). Broke it in right, used GM EOS, cam break-in lube,pre-lubed the engine before I fired it, AND changed the oil after I ran in the cam. I'll NEVER use another Comp. When I rebuilt the engine AGAIN I used a Lunati.

 

Based on how those lifters look, I don't think it's a flat cam. A flat cam would have ground the bottom of the lifter to where it would be very obvious. Plus the fact that it sounds normal when cold is another clue that it's OK.

 

For the record, I have an electric fuel pump. The springs I'm using are the edelbrock "sure seat" springs which from what I could tell are similar to the comp cams springs recommended to be used with my cam. (which is a comp cams 252h it's around 450 lift and 206 for duration)

I called tech again and the guy mentioned that if it only starts making noise when warm, then it could be the valve guides. So that's where I'm at. The only reason I've avoided pulling the cam is that the valvetrain only makes noise when warm, that would kind of rule out the cam right? Or am I in denial. The lifters had no noticeable dish to them, from what I've seen in the past those are pretty normal wear patterns for the lifters.

 

Lots of stories about wiped cams on the net. Most blamed on a lack of zinc addatives in the oil, or improper break-in/installation. I have also heard that some reputable companies are using questionable quality cam cores and lifters. I don't think there was a complicated -hold yer breath- break in procedure when flat tapped cam cars were built back in the day, but that was before the onslaught of imported junk parts

 

Flat cams are happening more often. My buddy also lost the steel crank in his 340
from all the wasted cam lobe particles. Be careful as you diagnose the problem, as other damage may be happening.

 

I'm with Bigchuck on this one.........something other than a lack of zinc is wiping out cams these days. In years past we would go down to our local Chevy dealer or hot rod shop, plunk down $ 17 , buy a hot cam, use the same lifters we had, install the cam, and fire it up. Most times we didn't even KNOW there was a break in procedure so we would immediately let it idle so we could hear the rump rump idle. All that and I can't ever remember having a cam failure, or anyone I knew, for that matter.

Now we put all these good zinc additives in, change the oil immediately, break in the cam at 2000 rpms, etc, etc, and end up having to hold your breath wondering if the cam will last or not. You would think that with technological advances made in the past 50-60 years that cam material would even be BETTER than it was. Very confusing.

Don

 

I'm a little concerned after reading the steps you went through on the cam and lifter change. I never saw anywhere that you changed cam and lifters together. First you put a new cam in with old lifters, then you put new lifters in with a cam that had been broken in with the old lifters.
Once a cam wears in with lifters, or lifters run on a new cam, both are worn together. Puttting a new cam in with old lifters immediately causes the lobes to wear to the lifter and vice versa.
I never put a new cam or lifters in separately. I always put them in as a set, just for this reason. You may have to buy both cam and lifters again to stop the cycle of each wearing the other prematurely.

 

First sentence, first post says he changed to new cam and new lifters;
New lifters pic's in post #10 look like they have many thousand miles on them not just a few trips around the block. Yes you are in denial, stop the bleeding and pull the cam...................
Just curious what SBC & dizzy are you using?

 

I'm using an accel billet hei. I plan on pulling the cam this weekend

 

well, i'm no expert, but i'm pretty sure my cam went flat/on its way to going flat.

pulled my lifters out yesterday and noticed some small inconsistencies between them all (after laying a straight edge across them)

so i pulled the cam, and it does look to have more then normal wear for a cam that only has about 2-300 miles of driving on it.

so my question at this point is; is there any collateral damage that has been done to my motor because of this? I swear up and down i did everything correctly as far as installation and break in goes. Should i be calling Comp and trying to get a new cam out?

thanks for all the help guys, especially Brigrat.

here are the pics, decide for yourself:

 

Up on the Webrodder Forum Doc made some comments on where you can get US made lifters vs the offshore ones that seem to be common now.

 

carbed87
You should check and see if your distributor groove lines up with the oil passages if not it could be dumping oil back into pan and affecting lube on hole engine or just blocking oil from the lifers and top end. We had this trouble we adjusted the valves cold and would be fine until the engine got warm and then lifter noise we noticed no oil in the top end after the engine got warm while trying to adjust valves warm. On a sbc the distributor can block or bleed oil so we checked that first. It ended up being the accel distributor was blocking oil (may not have been accel's fault could have been a combination of manifold, head, and distributor). We cut the groove wider after measuring where the galley was compared to the groove in the distributor. Now it squirts oil half way across the room if the valve covers are off.

sdsmith33

 

You pretty much described my situation EXACTLY. I read what you said you did do fix the problem but still don't follow. Could you elaborate? Are you talking about the groove on the bottom of the distributor that the oil pump fits in.

 

From the pics that cam looks fine. Unless your oil looks like silver metalic paint being mixed up, your cam is likely not going flat. Once a lobe or lifter is worn past its hardness layer they wear VERY fast and there will be tons of metal flake in your oil. Clean your dipstick on a white paper towel...how does it look?..when you took the valve covers off, are all rockers and valve retainers nice and wet with oil?

 

you see how the top of the lobes are shiney on one side and still dark on the other? Cam lobes are not flat on top they are tapered to one side so it will spin the lifter. If you wher going flat, it would be ground all the way across the top of the lobe, and not shiney, but dull like if it were sanded with sandpaper...

 

The screw diver is pointing to the area "groove" of concen for directing the oil...............or loosing it!

 

I forget the number but there are only a handfull of makers of cam blanks, everyone buys from these same mfgrs.

Somebody still listens to his bullshit?!?!?!

 

Ok well excuse me for sounding like an idiot, but what exactly should I be looking
For. I'm guessing I should mockup the intake manifold and stab the dizzy to check if that groove lines up somehow?

 

Carbed87 sorry I didn't respond sooner I was working out in the shop. Brigrat is right the groove I was talking about is where his screw driver is pointing on the distributor. It was on my bosses 32 3w and he measured and used a piece of welding rod to mark it and we just took it apart and chucked it in the lathe and widened the groove. I am not real sure what he did to measure and check alignment of passages and distributor.


sdsmith33

 

If he knows the witch are domestic vs China...

 

Maybe it's too close to lunch and I'm not thinking clearly. How does a person determine if the groove location is lining up correctly on a motor installed in a car? I may be suffering from this same problem on one of my cars and have an Accell distributor.

 

I would start with a known original GM SBC dizzy (post '56) and do alot of measuring on that. Than I would measure a stock known correct SBC block with manifold installed and measure up from top of block to top of intake manifold mating surface of dizzy. Do the same with yours and see what the diff is. Or you if you have real good eyes you can do the rod down the dizzy hole trick................

 

Ok well luckily my buddie has his stock 307 on an engine stand in our garage so after pulling some measurements off of that, and then my motor, it looks like there is about a 3/16" mis-alignment of that groove on my distributor.

I'll be taking it to my buddie Bryan's place (deluxe speed shop) and he said he could fix her
Right up on his lathe.

With that said, I'll start
Getting everything BACK together this week, but before I do that, I wanted to just assure that my camshaft looks ok in the pictures. I'd hate to put a junk can back in there!

Big thanks to everyone for all the help! Man I sure hope this does it!

 

My.02...

When you reinstall the cam, if by chance it ticks, use a short length of hose as a stethoscope, to pinpoint which is ticking. Try to narrow it down. This is a crap shoot.

Zink or lack of isnt causing cams to wear, it the hardening process and poor quality. Comp are good cams. I run castrol GTX and have never whipped a cam, Pennzoil makes a high zink race oil, but its a bit overkill for a street engine.

 

You already know what I would think & do!

"I run castrol GTX and have never whipped a cam, Pennzoil makes a high zink race oil, but its a bit overkill for a street engine."

Nothing is over kill if it stops the insanity............

 

Kinda, you said that you thought the cam was wiped, but that was before I pulled it. Does that mean your sticking with that lol? If there's anyone going
Insane right now it's me

 

I feel your pain is all I ment about the insanity thing!
To me the cam & lifters looks to "worn" for only 2-3 hundred miles on them, others here disagree with that and that's fine but it doesn't help you any, so your call.
It's a pain in the butt but I have in the past put lighter spring in for break in only. Should you have to go to all that trouble NO! But somthing is amiss here and if it were me I would install new components now. Unless you acually checked the spring pressure and confirmed the poundage you really don't know what you have. JMO

 

I gotta agree with BRIGRAT.
Now's the time to be safe...especially if you've noticed inconsistencies on the lifters. Why don't you mic the cam lobes...check with mfr for specs.?

 

I agree with the Micro. I disagree with mimicking while a brother needs help and is reaching out. Whats that called????