Technical Break in oil was not enough

It is a Melling cam and lifters and hope its just a bad lifter but will find out today.

 

Here you go Ebbsspeed, The motor I put in my Studebaker is some old
outdated round track technology. So when my buddies were done with it I got everything except the crank and the block. The cam was a custom grind ( I have no specs other than I checked it for lift and it is 485 ) I would say it is ground on a 106 center line seeing it is a round track cam. I set the lash at 18 and 18 ( sounds about right ) The lifters were in a box in no order so I fit each one to a bore where it moved the easiest, the motor was only ran a few laps since being freshened up. So I got a block bored, I had a cast crank balanced ( they took 94 grams out of it ) it is a 6 in. rod motor with Carrillo pistons. I re-used the rings that were on the pistons ( 13 thous. end gap, everyone will say that is to tight 10 thou. would have been better ) The heads are World product with some big valve springs and I poured the ports full of varisol and all the valves were sealed so I bolted them right back on. I have not done a leak down on it but there is no blow by. Hopefully here in the near future I will get it to the track. Hoping to be in the 7's ( 1/8 mile )Me and the wife have been cruising it all summer . This is real world stuff here in my shop. Plus all I have ever used is White Lithium grease on the cam and lifters and have never had a issue. It might self destruct next week but so far so good. Plus I run the shit out of it.

 

New LS lifters are no different than old as far as I know? I think the factories are still using the same sources. My buddy just had to have all his replaced under warranty on a brand new Chevy truck with less than 8,000 miles on it. I was shocked (not knowing LS engines) to find out you can't swap lifters in and LS without pulling the heads!

 

I couldn't think of convex so I said concave knowing my buddies would correct it.

 

And one time I grew "Peeches"

 

Walk through a pick a part yard.
Lots of engines missing lifters

 

From what I hear the lifter issue is primarily on the engines with AFM or DOD cylinder cut out feature...Many LS greasy engines with 300k miles and never had a valve cover removed...
Back in the 60's ,265's with bad cams were not uncommon.And the SBC flat cams in 70's . GM put the blame on the vendor who hardened the cams....
It's hard to believe any of the large cam grinders would put out bad products and not give a shit....Bad news travels real fast nowadays...

 

I have one I haven't tried yet, just under .700 lift, "Max Taper" solid and nitrided from Comp, with tool steel lifters- should be interesting

 

Guessing it’s not going in a grocery getter

 

That lame excuse will work with us, but don't try that kind of double-talking in a debate with your wife! (ask me how I know)

 

Thats why I keep old low pressure valve springs to break in a cam.

 

It could be, if his grocery store is 1320-feet away!

 

And sometimes it's just inferior metal in my opinion. Maybe 3 hrs on this when I decided to change cams. I dodged a bullet.

 

Pulled the intake and four bad lifters and came from close to the middle of the cam,cam not hardened correctly or bad lifters?. Cam is coming out tomorrow and will most likely get the used cam if it checks out.

 

After further investigation it looks like one lifter did not spin amd the debris got in the surrounding lifters,the one was worn uneven and the rest were fine.

 

As the gang may know, cam lobes have a slight taper, at the nose to promote lifter rotation, along with a slight crown at the face of the lifter , this can be about .003" -. 005" from what I have measured with a micrometer. Still doesn't account for material quality. Excessive lifter bore clearance may affect the rotation, but that would let more oil dump onto cam lobe. I only use heavy moly lube on cam and lifter face , and run new synthetic oils, because they have additives that cope with high contact loads like the high pressure fuel pump on direct cylinder fuel injection. The ZDDP in a bottle additives can compromise the ability of the base oil you use, I avoid them. A ton of zinc is not a good thing, it is the total oil additive make up and starting with quality components that should prevent failures, not always easy. Remember 40 years ago, a cam kit from the corner speed, a can of GM "EOS", and a burn out in front of your girlfriend's house and you were good to go! No longer.

 

Bullet Cams, Memphis, TN. Don't bother with anyone else.

 

I lost two cams over a lifter not spinning. Both times just one lifter of the eight and lifter bores sized and working correctly. I don't think the lifters were of even hardness across their face and suspect only surface hardening because they wore fast and deep quickly. I used frequent oil changes to clear the debris and both engines are still here running today.

 

Got it apart and has two torn up lifters and a few more from around those two that probably got debris so cam is toast,trying to make a deal on a low mile 292 Y block so this 351 will get the used cam if it ckecks out and will not get used toouch longer.

 

Concaved=caved in. Easiest to remember...

Used cam n lifters? Fkn eh, go for it. Yes, clean motor. That's obvious and you didn't need that advice. Only 2 caveats, put each lifter where it came from on the cam, make sure they fit the bores good and no varnish. Clean the lifters well and don't look back. Check out your spring tensions, see how much stronger the new is vs the old, too much will hurt the stock parts. Again, go for it and don't look back.

These new parts are the best products $3.00/day labor can be.

 

I bought a used cam and lifters off eBay about 10 years ago, guy sent the lifters in a couple of pieces of 2x4, numbered and in order as how they came out. It went into a 302, never had any problems with it. Car was still running great when I got rid of it 5 years later.

I’d pull the bearings and check them, flush the oiling system best I could, put it back together and run it, changing the oil a couple of times after I got it running. Think of how many engines were built in dirt floor sheds in the past without the best cleanliness and turned out fine.

 

When I started in this industry 35 years ago, I started on school buses. Chevies with 366’s, we replaced two cams a year due to going flat. That was in a 35 bus fleet with everything getting oil changes every other month. Never in all those jobs did we ever pull an engine completely down to clean it out. Change the oil and filter, new cam, lifters, timing set, oil and filter and the bus went back to hauling kids. We never had any engine failures after the cam jobs. Do you guys think that if a cam or lifter fails in a new car covered under warranty the factory pays to completely disassemble the engine to clean it out? Not a chance in hell. If the lifter fails and the cam looks ok, it gets exactly one lifter. I had a local Jeep dealer tell me that on a 5.7 Hemi with a failed cam and lifter, they replace the cam and ONLY the failed lifter(s), and reuse the others.

 

In 1970 I bought a hopped up 289 from the local junk yard for my '65 Falcon 2 dr. wagon. The solid lifter Sig Erson cam looked questionable so I took it to them in Long Beach. They gave me a new cam and replaced a couple of lifters as well. I reassembled the engine with just STP on the new cam. I fired it up and broke it in for 20 minutes at 2 grand like they said to. (Longest 20 minutes of my life). Anyway the engine ran like a striped ass ape until I sold the car when I got drafted. The new owner ran the piss out of it as well until it met an untimely demise with a power pole. Fast forward to today when I have the 302 for my '54 Ranch Wagon in the machine shop for a complete long block rebuild. The machinist knows his stuff and it will be assembled properly. Hopefully no issues with the rebuild. But again another longest 20 minutes of my life break in on fire up is in my future.

 

I have a pile of soft Pontiac lifters about 1/8" shorter now due to wear. Brad Penn oil and proper cam grease didn't help. It's the lifter hardness or material. The last one I used NOS Clevite lifters from the early '80s, it's still going strong.
There needs to be a hardness test done on any lifter being sold, that would weed out a whole bunch of trash!

 

I had done everything right on it,timing set right on and pre lubed like the instructions said along with assembly lube. Did not fill the fuel bowl but fired in less then a minute after getting fuel so no excessive cranking,this engine just has to get me by until I get a Y block ready to go in and will place a magnet on the oil filter. Next time I break in a cam in a engine that does not have adjustable rockers I will place shims under the rockers to lessen the dtress on the lifters,I would rather listen to it tick for awhile then to gp through this again or roller lifters.

 

So how do you find out the lifter didn’t spin after the fact? Once it’s worn and mushroomed out it’s probably not going to spin right?

 

You can take the rocker cover off and use a white felt pen to mark the pushrod. Start the engine and make sure all of them spin. In my engine some would turn about a third of a turn per revolution, others were maybe about eighth of a turn but they all rotated.

One other thing I did was shut the engine off midway through the break-in process. Started getting too hot so I shut it off,let it cool and fired it up again. Didn't seem to have any ill effects.

 

When I pulled the lifter the wear was very uneven

 

One other suggestion I would make would be to remove the thermostat during break in. This way, you don’t have to worry about the engine running hot waiting for the thermostat to open up. The last engine I rebuilt with a flat tappet cam was a 318 Chrysler in an O/T Dodge truck. Ten minutes into cam break in and the thermostat had not opened and coolant temp was at 210 and I shut it down. It cooled down, the thermostat opened on restart, and I finished break in with no issues, but it’s something I will avoid from now on.