cam lobe vs. lifter centerline

A lot of guys here at work have questioned the offset of my cam lobe to the centerline of the lifter. Seems like all the engines (Fords) I've had apart had some degree of offset, and this one I have now is no different. Maybe 1/3 of the lifter face off of the cam lobe, give or take. I always thought it was to promote lifter rotation. Some of these Chevy guys are saying they've NEVER seen an offset like that. Does mine sound right? Maybe my nasty-gram to Comp was sent off to early....though as I said, even the stock stuff had a very similar lobe to lifter engagement.

Thanks,
Pete

if you sent a Nasty gram to comp cams WHY? it was not their fault your cam Wiped... you were told what to use on break in and if I remember right you chose a different oil cuz it was expensive to do it right..... you know some cam manufactures sell broke in cams they break them in, in a machine......


Randy

Yes, they are offset for that very reason (ROTATION). Those Chevy guy's will you along w/them, if you ask them technical ???'s about a Ford.

Randy,

What oil SHOULD I have used? A lot of people said VR-1 was good enough. And $50 a quart for EOS shows I wasn't afraid to spend $$$$. I used the stuff Comp gave me in their CL kit (the red sauce). Some guys said Joe Gibbs was best. Some said VR-1. Comp now sells their own stuff. Had I seen that, I'd a used it. I stood behind Comp for a long time, but there are LOTS of bad break in stories from guys that seem to know how to do it. I sure as heck did my best. I'd even consider using their nitriding service, if enough people said it was worthwhile. Until a guy does it himself several times, all he can do is solicit advice from peers. Which is what I did. If I didn't follow your advice, I'm sorry. Maybe next time I will. I guess at this point, a case of Joe Gibbs finest will be purchased for break in. But, do I still use EOS? Anyway, I'll go back through the old post and see what you recommended. As far as experience goes, I feel that I did my best to ensure proper break in, and it failed. And I know many others with similar stories, many from Comp. So, to be scientific, I should get the same cam, use th same parts, and try JG oil. If it breaks in, then I can blame VR-1/EOS, and not Comp. Hell, I'll be HAPPY to blame myself, I'll eat the costs with out a whimper.......but I sure need to know why it failed.

I just looked, and I can see where you might have thought I cheaped out. So, to clarify, I DID drain out the first batch of plain oil with EOS, and threw in 4 qts of VR-1 PLUS an additional 32 oz of EOS. For my next try, I can either give the Gibbs oil a try, or use Comp's "special break-in oil".

See what I mean about asking advice? I really need the help, so I get all the advice I can and HOPEFULLY make an educated decision. The people that back the JG are saying "I told you so" and the VR-1 people are scratching their heads. The Comp Haters are saying "Mmmm-hmmm, another casualty", and the Comp Lovers are saying "mine worked just fine". All I can say with certainty is that my first effort was a complete failure, and it's gonna sap the remaining resources to even get this thing running by snowfall.

Pete when I break a cam in I use the old method... They use to say start it and run it for an hour @2500 rpm.... I must have mis read your post if so I am sorry,,,, I just hear a bunch of guy's start them and run them for 10 to 20 mins and wonder why they FAIL. Sorry but the Lifters and lobes have to build a wear pattern and I feel you can't do it in 10 to 20 mins @ 1500 to 2000 rpm..... Check with Comp and see if they offer a broke in cam and lifters.....



Randy

These companies send out faulty merchandise sometimes also.You won't get them to ever mention they did, but they do. Just like Diamond pistons, when they sent a set of Total Seal rings w/pistons that had the wrong oil ring rails, they would'nt make that mistake. Good ole BF Evansraceparts appoligized when it wasn't their fault.

IMHO, you should go roller and have done with it. Ive experienced a cam wipe while in traffic, that was seriously bad times, and to top it off it was a COMP cam that wiped in a street driven 302. If you must go with a flat tappet you might want to consider switching brands.

Everyone seems quick to blame the oil or the cam manufacturer. Were all the clearances checked during assembly? I read stock springs somewhere. Installed hieght/coil bind? Retainer/seal/guide clearance? V/P clearance?

What I have observed with a context of FRPP and Comp flat tappet cams....VR-1 and the Comp #159 oil additive works good . The Gibbs and Brad Penn breakin oils are good but the availablity in our area is poor .

the Coug wrote:Pete when I break a cam in I use the old method... They use to say start it and run it for an hour @2500 rpm.... I must have mis read your post if so I am sorry,,,, I just hear a bunch of guy's start them and run them for 10 to 20 mins and wonder why they FAIL. Sorry but the Lifters and lobes have to build a wear pattern and I feel you can't do it in 10 to 20 mins @ 1500 to 2000 rpm..... Check with Comp and see if they offer a broke in cam and lifters.....



Randy

I agree, 20 mins ain't enough.

When I broke mine in (Edelbrock cam) I used the old Rotella (when it had zinc!) with the EOS and ran it at 2,000 for 15 mins then started to vary it up and down from 1,500 to 2,500 for 20 - 25 mins. The whole time I had a water hose running into the rad with the rad drain open, this kept the engine temp in control.

I have driven it now for three summers. So far so good.

The cost of a roller seems to be really high. I am willing to bet on the flat tappet.

The crate engine route is great when they are broke in and run on the dyno. If the cam wipes, it happens on their dyno before you even get it. I think it would be hard to build it fro what Carl and others are charging!

Bill

Carl wrote:Everyone seems quick to blame the oil or the cam manufacturer. Were all the clearances checked during assembly? I read stock springs somewhere. Installed hieght/coil bind? Retainer/seal/guide clearance? V/P clearance?

I asked those questions in the other thread. Looks like you treed me here though. I wonder how much lift he has with those "stock" springs. Could be a problem.

Yep, stock C9 springs. I asked (the other forum) about max lift with stock valvetrain, and the consensus I got back was around 0.530" lift. The X4262 sports a 0.524" exhaust lift. I took the springs to work and checked spring pressure to make sure they were all equal (give or take); though I did not measure coil bind height or V/P clearance, I did rotate the engine over by hand several revolutions to visually check that the 0.524" lift would be OK. I chose to run stock springs over the Comp stuff for a little budget relief, knowing that I'd never run the thing past 5500. In fact, I've got a 5200 pill in the MSD box, IIRC. Plus, I did not want to machine the heads for bigger springs. Now that I need to go back through the whole thing, I need to decide if I want to pony up for machining the spring pads, then I might as well clean up the ports, and cut bigger valves in it, get ready to buy guideplates, studs, and rockers. At that point, I shoulda bought some used aluminum Motorsport CJ's (what do they call those now? Used to be CJ's...) for the same $$$$ as trickin' up the C9VE's. The roller cam and lifters would set me back, what, maybe $500 minimum? Yikes!! I was hoping for a little extra rumble from a mostly stock 429. I figured I selected a very appropriate cam for this, and I thought I followed a pretty good break in.

I can easliy run longer than 20 minutes at 2500 or so. That seems like a good idea. It would appear to me that I had wiped out the cam within that 20 minute timeframe, since I only have 30-60 seconds of super rough idle after the initial run-in/ shut down.

If a guy wants a little extra HP from a stock-ish 429-460, and that mild 262 cam is too much (lift, springs, etc.) for stock heads, should I stick with a smaller cam? I'm happy to take the blame if it was a bad choice on cam selection, though I DID take collective opinions on it before I made the purchase. Maybe I can source a set of used D3's that are machined for the adjustable valvetrain already. I thought my C9 heads were somewhat desirable - maybe not. If all else fails, TorinoJoe has a low mile 460 that I can bolt in, too. Sure, it's more satifying to put an engine together yourself and make it go, but I'm not sure that satisfaction is worth another round of cam wipe-out overhauling.

Thanks to all for the advice. I really do need and appreciate it!

Did you prelube the motor before you started it? 5/16 inch socket on the oil pump drive turned counterclockwise till you had oil coming out of the rockers???? I am always intrigued by cam failures, so I want to know what went wrong.

I just used an old gutted dizzy without the gear. I ran it on the drill (in reverse) until oil was coming out of the rockers, then turned the engine over by hand to make sure all the bearings had lots of oil too.

You need a good drill, mine was smoking by the time I was done!!

Bill

Just curious - Did the engine start IMMEDIATELY...? What are the valve spring pressures...?
Anything more than 280# open and your chances to be successful get less.

The engine cranked one times prior to the 2500 thunder. Sorta like, (forgive the spelling) R-R-WHAA...(a little gas in the carb) R-WHAAA... (a little more gas)...R-WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.....and so began the break in. No long term starter grinding. I pre-lubed once with no valve covers on to see oil through all 16 rockers/pushrods, and once right before fire-up. Maybe those two super short start ups (they totalled MAYBE 1.5 seconds)??

I don't have the exact numbers for all springs, but they averaged 255 @1.350, which was right in line with what I read for stock springs. I thought the Comp springs were much higher, so I used the wimpy ones for cost savings. Plus, I figured it would be better for break in purposes.

Cams I have seen fail seem to fail way before 20 min. Your, cranking it over by hand and looking at it, probably had the lifters bottomed out and you may not have been seeing full lift. Better check that again with a solid lifter, or put a washer on it to make the push rod move when the lifter does, and a feeler guage.

When you get ready to go together with the new cam, Just get on here and let us know what all your measurements are, and we can walk you through everything. It only takes missing one thing and the cam is toast.

I am sure it will go well next time.

Comp cams told me their break in additive was the same as the GM EOS, just bottled in their own bottles.

Good luck

One thing you must think about when using the stock springs is that spring's rate. While it's easy to think that it must be weaker than a spring which is sold for high performance use this might not be true. The rate of the spring could be pretty high meaning that it's open load was very acceptable with the stock lift cam but it's now too high with a cam that has more lift. The load increases more quickly as the valve opens than it would with the spring that's intended to be used with more lift.

DaveMcLain wrote:One thing you must think about when using the stock springs is that spring's rate. While it's easy to think that it must be weaker than a spring which is sold for high performance use this might not be true. The rate of the spring could be pretty high meaning that it's open load was very acceptable with the stock lift cam but it's now too high with a cam that has more lift. The load increases more quickly as the valve opens than it would with the spring that's intended to be used with more lift.

I never thought of that. That is why I pay to have my springs set up by somebody who knows WTF they are doing.

Sometimes this stuff can be counter intuitive. A good example are those drop in springs for Small Block Chevy egines which can handle .600 lift. I've never had good luck with those and the seem to either break rather quickly or the rate is just too high to be used.

Recently I built a 383 Chevy for a customer with a jet boat. It was a simple engine with a dished piston, Eagle cast crank and Vortec heads. The cam was a flat tappet hydraulic using the Reed Torque Master lobes and it had about .500 lift. The customer found it interesting when I showed him how I had machined the heads so that a 1.5 diameter spring would fit. And that I did this to keep the spring load down and to allow using a more durable spring package. He though it was strange how a larger spring didn't necessarily have more load on the seat and actually had less open load at the lift we were running.

DaveMcLain wrote:Sometimes this stuff can be counter intuitive. A good example are those drop in springs for Small Block Chevy egines which can handle .600 lift. I've never had good luck with those and the seem to either break rather quickly or the rate is just too high to be used.

Recently I built a 383 Chevy for a customer with a jet boat. It was a simple engine with a dished piston, Eagle cast crank and Vortec heads. The cam was a flat tappet hydraulic using the Reed Torque Master lobes and it had about .500 lift. The customer found it interesting when I showed him how I had machined the heads so that a 1.5 diameter spring would fit. And that I did this to keep the spring load down and to allow using a more durable spring package. He though it was strange how a larger spring didn't necessarily have more load on the seat and actually had less open load at the lift we were running.

Right there is the difference between knowing what you are doing, and .............me.



So I keep learning.........