Well, I broke it good. My season is over...

Flattened out a lifter and rounded out a cam lobe.

Wasn't a header leak after all

Actually, this tap just started today and got worse, then...


details at http://mmb.maverick.to/showthread.php?t=38277

Now I get a chance to do it RIGHT!!! A GOOD cam, not a Performer Plus. Double roller cam chain, maybe replace some of those heater hose fittings with AN. Plus I am going to drop on my stock Torker 289 intake and put the ported one in the attic for a while. Been wanting to try it out for a long time.

Some people think the stock T289 will work on my engine BETTER than the ported one. So now we will see. Of course, I plan on maxing out with a much better cam so hopefully it runs better anyway.

 

I think that's what adds fun to this hobby, if machines wouldn't fail it'd be pretty damn boring to never break something.

Good Luck!

 

Dammnt. Sorry dude.
You have me worried now. Guess I will hafta figure out how to superglue this C4 back together before I find out how my CHEAP 302 is doing...

 

You are gay...

 

Oh boy...another flat cam lobe.

No intention to point a finger or start a big debate...just curious if you would be willing to share what oil you were running, how long the cam had been in the motor, and break in? Seems like a there has been a rash of flat cams over the last couple of years. Discussions over at 460Ford.com has been around reduced additives to oils and foreign cam cores.....just wondering.

Cleaver

 

Sorry to see the carnage, but glad you found the problem, Scott.

It'll be nice to have a bigger cam next time at the track (and down the street).

 

Cam was put in in April '05. I knew nothing about them at the time, which is why I bought the Performer Plus. I thought that was a "big" cam at the time. I have learned a lot since then...

Honestly, I put the cam in with the squirt-packet lube and it broke in fine. Then swapped the oil after a hundred miles or so. I had been swapping intakes and cams and etc so I started to use cheap Wal-Mart no-name oil because I was only getting 200-500 miles between oil changes. Then once it got running without all the major engine changes, I started running my typical Castrol GTX.

I am thinking that that this is not an oil issue (but I doubt that Wal-Mart oil helped in any way).

It appears that this failure was a lifter failure, and not a cam lobe failure. The cam lobe is still mostly intact and tried it's best to stay together while the lifter suffered most of the wear. But I am afraid to put another lifter in there since the cam is probably "heat-treated" and brittle on that one lobe after all this extra heat and friction, and it has been defaced a bit (rounded edges).

I share this opinion I did a lot of things wrong years ago before I started to figure this project out, and this failed cam will give me the chance to correct some of those problems, and end up with a better engine afterwards...

 

Time for a nice Comp XE roller cam and link bar lifters. You'll be amazed at the difference.

 

I think the reference was to the Fed outlawing some oil additives in recent years.
Zinc is a big additive that was removed from engine oil that helped preserve cams/lifters.
Comp Cams and other companies have made statements on their sites about this.
Probably doesn't matter on roller cams.
Everyone knows the Fed is just waiting for all of our old carb'd dinosaurs to fall to attrition anyway. This is just another way of speeding the process.

 

I got a new cam, will be pulling out my Edelbrock retrofit roller cam in a few weeks. Uses the stock cast iron distributor gear and keeps the old 15426378 firing order. It's a full base circle cam so link bar lifters are needed to run it in a pre-roller block. Specs are:

227*/234*@ .050 duration
.520/.520 lift
112* lobe sep.
107* intake cl

Starts making power at about 2000 rpm, up to 6500 rpm

 

It might start making power at 2k, but I ran one with nearly identical specs, and you couldn't feel any power before 3k.
Ran awesome with T289 and 4.11 gears!

 

I'm sure this will get deleted soon, so enjoy while it's here.

 

I use Mobile 1...I found this handy table on their site(yellow highlights show the phosphorus levels): http://www.mobiloil.com/USA-English/MotorOil/Files/Mobil_1_Product_Guide.pdf

 

thanks rick, i saved it.

 

LMAO

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