I don’t understand the worry and dread of a flat tappet cam,,,,,it will be alright . Like the great Alan Shepherd said,,,,,,well,,,let’s fix these problems and light this candle . The moral of which is that to worry about something that might happen,,,,but probably won’t,,,,doesn’t do anything. Your waiting or backing up,,,,,light the candle,,,,,,and move forward . It will be alright,,,,,move forward,,,,,,and besides,,,,,there are at least 100 other things that could go wrong . LoL,,,,,,,just light the candle ! Tommy
I looked it up, Alan Shepard said that in 1961, after sitting in a tiny space capsule for over 4 hours waiting for mission control to "fix their little problems." Al had to piss in his spacesuit because of it.
@Hilo hotrodder Here's Part three of that series. I just found them on Facebook this morning. I've seen this thread for the last few day but wish i would've started reading it sooner.
I like this guy and agree with him. I think all the blame on oil, etc is misplaced and that there is a quality problem with lifters, could be with camshafts as well.
theres a amplifying capcitor sry cant spell under the rotor they cost about 20 bucks here in canada so ten there buy two keep one in ur glovebox an use the dielectric grease it comes with when you change it , aside from that capaciter and nowadays cheap china rotors an caps hei are bullet proof , it's a little rectangle thingy held down with two screws with two wires coming from it
There ya go. I have a Chet Herbert 30/30 FT cam on the shelf, newly ground for the 1983 stock car season. I had other issues so the cam has sat since then.
I have a Wolverine 30-30 complete kit. Cam, lifters, and springs. Sent to me by JCW by a mismatched number 25-30 years ago. Good chance it’s not Chinese junk. I didn’t send it back.
good cams back then.... degreed a 350hp 327 hyd Wolverine Blue Racer .... blue print spec was dead on. Back then they had a piece of paper.....ground by largest cam grinder in US. Most likely Elgin Industries, kinda like TRW was. Today Mahle is a large player with high quality.
Is it just me, or is this primarily a SBC problem? Out of all the cars I've owned, I had two cam failures and both were SBC.
Back in later 70's- early 80's I worked for our local municipality in garage. We used to buy replacement cam and lifters for sbc's by the bushel for our utility vans, pickups and so on. These were the factory cams though.
Trust me its not contained to SBC's! I had trouble with my Hemi, it wanted to eat its new lifters (sold to me as made in the USA Johnson's lifters) luckily I caught it early, was able to remedy the problem by having the cam reground with maximum slope and Howard's direct lube lifters.
Mine was a custom grind, I used to deal with Chet Herbert himself on the phone. I was in California in 1984 and stopped in his shop outside of Long Beach. I did not know he was in a wheel chair. A real nice guy and a shop loaded with cam cores and grinders.
I wonder if there is a non destructive method of checking for hardness of the lifters..??... And also the camshaft..?? I do own all the instruments for checking the clearances for those...
So has no one ever installed a used cam and lifters ? and not knowing where the lifters were before ?
Yes... ran great. Also many machine shops regrind cams. In the 80s I put in two, ran great for many miles. My 292 sbc had lifters mixed up, solid cam ran until engine expired, My 283 is running great with lifters mixed up, oil soaked box could not read the cyl numbers. Running great, well past 200 miles and 15 passes at tri five nats. I believe the issue is part surface finish quality, and part oil formulation that bought you margin on break in. Are the lifters rotating properly.? difficult to know, all plays into this, as well as how cam is made, has anyone checked to see if lobes are sloped at an angle to keep cam from thrusting? In my career I dealt periodically with class 8 diesel cams, roller followers... and there is incredible differences by engine, oem, suppliers...., loading, wear, edge loading, wobble, resonance... separation, skidding, pitting, spalling and fatigue.. even pin and roller interface ect ect... Ironically other similar interfaces in eng components where sliding was present that relied on oil as a lubricant, were suddenly having odd failues... right about the time oil formulations changed for emission regulations. Many of those were resolved with surface finish enhancements, coatings or introducing metallurgical differences to prevent a form of friction welding. Quality issues can show up and vanish before you can obtain offending parts for test.... hence why big data helps validate those events.
You'd need the criteria for the hardness of each. Lifters would be harder to find a place to do the test as most surfaces are critical, the cam too if you wanted to use the lobes. Off lobe would be safer.
I'd like to see a comparison of NOS lifters...70s to 80s compare to post 2000 ish yrs. Especially surface finish, processes. The key timeline would be when OEMs switched to roller cams. Sudden decrease in supplier demand... flat tappet becomes non current process.
Does a Rockwell or similar test leave a score/indent? I’ve seen it done but at the time I didn’t think to ask and never thought to look/inspect the piece closer.
For those of you " not understanding" the worry of using a flat tappet cam , how many of you have lost a cam or seen a buddy lose a cam ? The realization that the motor that you've so carefully assembled not only has to be torn down ,scrubbed clean , have new bearings installed crossing your fingers that you've gotten everything clean enough ( behind piston ,pins , rings , timing gear ,oil pump , etc) & that not only do you have to buy many new parts & the expense incurred , but after its all back together , you have to go through break in again , not to mention the overwhelming feeling of abject failure & loss of confidence in your abilities .....well , it makes you severely gun shy
Just went down that road with a 400 Pontiac, $2000 to repair after a cam went bad due to the customer not using the correct oil. He still believed in standard oil in everything, it went 200 miles and took three lobes clean off the cam after I broke it in with break-in oil. Spend the extra up front and save thousands! It took 6 weeks of calling to find a set of USA made lifters, so keep that in mind. OUT OF STOCK is all you see now.
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