Cam wiped out, what the hell did I do wrong?!?!?

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Wow. sorry bro.

After having this happen to me twice, I only run roller cams.
You cant go wrong.
 
The reason I was asking if your timing chain was excessively stretched (for the amount of miles which i assume is very few) is because this may indicate an excessive drag in the cam area which may indicate an oiling issue in the cam journals which may (not sure about any of this) lead to poor cam to lifter lubrication.. And this would coincide with your burned up cam bearings..

Someone here probably knows if its possible to starve the cam of oil flow (clogged oil galley or something else) and end up burning up the cam bearings and wiping the cam, or if that scenario would or could go hand in hand..

Are the cam bearings installed correctly with the holes lined up really well? If they were off alignment this would starve the cam bearings and burn them up and probably burn up the lifter bottoms and cam lobes as well (total speculation)..
 
greg at ss/afx helped me build my motor and he told me that with the timing chain to let it soak in some motor oil before installing it. he said he has seen motor let go because the builder sprayed some oil on the chain and thought it was good.
 
I had good oil pressure, a bit on the high side, actually, and there was lots of oil coming up through the pushrods, so the lifters must have been getting oil. The holes were lined up on the cam bearings. This is why I can't figure it out, especially the cam being almost completely seized. Can't say the cam lobes are a huge surprise because of the steep ramp angles on them ,but lots of people are running them with no problems.
 
So any suggestions on a new cam and cam bearings? Can the bearings be changed without pulling the engine? I think probably not, but I'm tired of R&Ring engines in this thing.
 
EL5DEMON340 said:
Rice is right, did you pre-oil?
Click to expand...

Had liberal coats of assembly lube on everything, and pre-oiled prior to starting. I just think that I must have wiped all the lube off the lobes before I got it started. Have no idea why the bearings seized, unless it's because of contamination from all the metal from the lobes. I still haven't got the the bottom end yet to see what, if any, damage there is.
 
I'd just go roller, i did notice something that wasn't mention, looks to me in one of the pix that a lifter is "chipped", also looks like alot more then one lobe was going south, even though the one went flat, some of the others were not far behind, if it were mine at this point, i'd pull it, totally disasemble it, clean it thoroughly & install all new bearings, rod/main & cam, all that fine metal has gone everywhere.
 
Physhy I bought a cam from Hughes last year and they sold me the same springs you provided the link to. After I got home I checked them to verify the pressure and they actually have more pressure than their rated at. Mine show 150 lbs on the seat and 350 over the nose. That's a lot for breaking in a cam that's as aggressively ground as yours. IMO Hughes should have told you those springs were too stout for break in. Even if they were what they were rated at that's a lot of pressure to break in a cam that aggressive. JMO
 
I had the exact thing happen to me recently on my 426 Hemi rebuild. I bought a brand new hydraulic comp cam kit. Assembled it and dropped it into my Cuda and fired it up. I had encounter the same problems you had and thought my Carb was acting up too. It wasn't the carb, so I checked the compression and it was showing 80-95 PSI. For a brand new engine this was not right, so I thought my valve adjustment was off and tried to adjust it. As I tried tuning it the response got worst and at the end one of the cylinders stop firing and that is when I knew something bad had happened. I pulled that lifter out and it had ground to the inner core and left a hole in the lifter.
After 5 minutes, My heart started to beat again and I could actually breathe on my own, I started to pull the other lifters out and that is when I knew I was in really big trouble. 13 of the 16 lifters were ground and some had chips on the edges. I must have used every known swear word or phrase in the dictionary and a few that I had made up. After tearing into the engine, I finally got the cam out and could see all the damage it caused to the Cam bearings. I made a call to a good friend who owns one of the most reputable machine shops in town and he mentioned the problems he and his costumers were having with Comp cams. My other friend who also owns a well known machine shop had said the exact same thing about the cams from Comp. Even with the Zinc additive oil and racing oil combined on the break in periods costumers still experienced ground cams. Purchasing hydraulic/solid cams from these certain manufactures is like playing Russian rolette.
After 7 years of labor and of course MONEY... I seriously asked myself if it was worth the extra time and money I would spend pulling this 850lb. Elephant out of my 1971 Cuda again... With a nearly perfect paint job and 2 gallons of clear my thoughts were to leave the engine as is and try to clean what I could and replace the cam bearings and install a new camshaft and live happily ever after... I was still in shock and in denial about this whole thing and could not bring myself to go through this again but after consulting with my machine shop buddies they gave me 2 options to my ordeal, #1- Do what I thought was a good idea and just clean and replace what I needed too then sale the car before I drove it. OR #2-Do the whole 9 yards and really double check everything which of course included buying a very good cam. I really wanted to enjoy this car before I die. (which if all goes well, won't be for another 55 years: 100yrs)
Well, after a long thought process which lasted for a few minutes, I decided to go with option #2. If there is any really good advise that I can share with all of you is this, Once that camshaft starts to grind those lifters and the little tiny, tiny particles mix with the oil that splashes all over the connecting rods and crankshaft below the chances of that contaminated oil flowing through your engine is probably 80-90%.
When I took apart the whole engine and went through the conrod/main bearings it was covered with shaving particulates. This was not the bad part, the one thing that could have really cause a catastrophic failure was the wrist pins that were galled. And there was 3 of them.
So there you have it. I hope this helps you. And if you are wondering about my car, It runs, sounds and drives great! It was all worth it! actually, there is more to this car then just the engine. I did have to change out the 4 speed trans and bell 4-5 times also...That is another story for the next time.

Thanks for your time and good luck,

ty
 
64physhy said:
So any suggestions on a new cam and cam bearings? Can the bearings be changed without pulling the engine? I think probably not, but I'm tired of R&Ring engines in this thing.
Click to expand...
If I were you,I,d get ahold of Brian at IMM engines(Cali.)He should be able to give you answers to all your questions and help get you back together.Ask about a roller cam.Mine is .631 lift @.050 252@258 @106
 
64physhy said:
So any suggestions on a new cam and cam bearings? Can the bearings be changed without pulling the engine? I think probably not, but I'm tired of R&Ring engines in this thing.
Click to expand...

When you lose a cam, you have to tear it completely apart, remove all galley plugs and CLEAN your *** off!
Then use new bearings, possibly new rings (if metal was on the bores, it will cause the moly to peel off the rings and you'll have issues later on)and most likely cam bearings.

This is why I stress to our customers to dyno the engine. That 550.00 is worth it in the long run. When you try to break the engine in while it's in the car, you can have other issues that prolong the startup and break in procedure allowing metal to transfer from lifter to lobe or vice versa.

It would be a good idea to check the spring pressure when you get the heads off. Also check lifter bores for less than perfect fit.
The engine needs to be started up timed very close to ideal and ran immediately to 2500 rpm. Then I adjust the timing to about 38 or so to keep ex. temps down and run it there for 20 min.
After that, I idle it down, reset timing where I want it and adjust the floats and idle of the carb.

Hope it goes better for you next time.
Brian
 
So how much is it to put a roller cam setup complete into a small block?
I don't want to hijack this thread, but i think this would be the next obvious question here.
 
64, I see Hughes supplied the heads. Do you have paperwork that says what the installed heights of the springs are? I'm not a Magnum guy but perhaps Brian can help me here... The Magnum installed height is typically shorter unless the valves are longer. Around 1.600" with stock valves. The 1122 spring at an installed height of 1.830 has about 335lbs at .600 lift according to Hughe's site. The dual spring they recommend (1111) is installed at 1.80 and has the same 333lbs at .600 lift. If they set the spring heights up for even the longer Chevy valves (.100") you're still way short for that spring. Meaning the pressures will be WAY higher. I doubt it would coil bind, but the pressures may be too high for the cam. If you verified all you said (and I don't doubt that part) then there's got to be an issue with soemthing you couldn't verify.
On cleaning teh block... Yeah, take it out, strip it to bare, wash it with soap and brushes, and reassemble the whole thing. Iron dust went everywhere and not cleaning it is a fast way to wipe out everything else down the road. Oil changes and flushes don't cut it when it's all through it. I'm doing the same with an engine that ate a timing cover now. It sucks.
 
clifftt said:
"Pre-oil" meaning you primed the engine with the oil pump priming tool using a drill?
Click to expand...

Yes, I pre oiled using the Mopar Performance oil pump priming tool attached snugly in the chuck of a 3/4" drill on one end, and seated snugly in the oil pump drive on the other end and ran until a good flow was observed from the top of the pushrods over the rockers.
 
moper said:
64, I see Hughes supplied the heads. Do you have paperwork that says what the installed heights of the springs are? I'm not a Magnum guy but perhaps Brian can help me here... The Magnum installed height is typically shorter unless the valves are longer. Around 1.600" with stock valves. The 1122 spring at an installed height of 1.830 has about 335lbs at .600 lift according to Hughe's site. The dual spring they recommend (1111) is installed at 1.80 and has the same 333lbs at .600 lift. If they set the spring heights up for even the longer Chevy valves (.100") you're still way short for that spring. Meaning the pressures will be WAY higher. I doubt it would coil bind, but the pressures may be too high for the cam. If you verified all you said (and I don't doubt that part) then there's got to be an issue with soemthing you couldn't verify.
On cleaning teh block... Yeah, take it out, strip it to bare, wash it with soap and brushes, and reassemble the whole thing. Iron dust went everywhere and not cleaning it is a fast way to wipe out everything else down the road. Oil changes and flushes don't cut it when it's all through it. I'm doing the same with an engine that ate a timing cover now. It sucks.
Click to expand...

They are installed at 1.850. The seats were machined down.
 
Ouch! I’ve had that happen too….that is why I run a roller cam now. It might not have been anything you did. I know in my case I took every precaution (removed inner spring, used comp 159 break in additive, pre oiled, etc…) and it still wiped a lobe.

First and foremost, you MUST tear the engine down, clean and check everything. My motor had metal shavings stuck in the piston skirts that got dragged up and down the cylinder walls…had to bore it another 0.010 to fix it…new pistons, bearings, oil pump,etc...

For the person that asked how much $ to go roller, I think it was ~ 1200 when all was said and done (cam, lifters, springs, pushrods, retainers, locks).
 
Good info hemi426dart..

What a tragedy for both you guys.. Friggin cars can be an expensive and ***-backwards hobby sometimes.. gotta take a step back, gather some funds, dig back into it..

Ive been considering building a metal stand with some gauges to break-in my future engine rather than the in-car break-in.. Put some manifolds with cheap turbo mufflers on it soes I can hear the engine..
 
fishy68 said:
Physhy I bought a cam from Hughes last year and they sold me the same springs you provided the link to. After I got home I checked them to verify the pressure and they actually have more pressure than their rated at. Mine show 150 lbs on the seat and 350 over the nose. That's a lot for breaking in a cam that's as aggressively ground as yours. IMO Hughes should have told you those springs were too stout for break in. Even if they were what they were rated at that's a lot of pressure to break in a cam that aggressive. JMO
Click to expand...

bingo.

I was told the same thing 10yrs ago when I bought my hughes cam/lifters & springs.

they don't tell everybody that they figure in 'spring break in' or 'spring cycling' which is where the spring upon cycling with heat/compression loses 7-9lbs , btw that is what dave told me back then, that they start out heavy to compensate for the psi lose after spring break in.

130 psi seat would have worked, but 150+ on a fast ramp is disaster city.

Cool thing about double springs is you have pull the inners and drop the seat pressure down 20'ish psi for break in.

I love how they talk about lite weight beehive springs saying they are like titanium valves.....
I'll take the lighter valves 1st, unless they hit rockers er sumthin.
Lighter valves/'retainers' and lighter lifters are the key here.jmo

Did you know that hughes solid lifters weigh 20 grams a piece MORE than mp solid lifters? -320 grams extra to bounce around..maybe thats why they really need that beehive.

if it wasn't for their rockers...they could drop off the face of the planet for all I care.
 
1wild&crazyguy said:
bingo.

I was told the same thing 10yrs ago when I bought my hughes cam/lifters & springs.

they don't tell everybody that they figure in 'spring break in' or 'spring cycling' which is where the spring upon cycling with heat/compression loses 7-9lbs , btw that is what dave told me back then, that they start out heavy to compensate for the psi lose after spring break in.

Ahh.....That explains why mine tested so high.
Click to expand...
130 psi seat would have worked, but 150+ on a fast ramp is disaster city.

Cool thing about double springs is you have pull the inners and drop the seat pressure down 20'ish psi for break in.

Yep their sure easier. Going with the high pressure beehive's caused me to have to buy an extra set of lighter weight springs to break in my cam.
Click to expand...
I love how they talk about lite weight beehive springs saying they are like titanium valves.....
I'll take the lighter valves 1st, unless they hit rockers er sumthin.
Lighter valves/'retainers' and lighter lifters are the key here.jmo

Did you know that hughes solid lifters weigh 20 grams a piece MORE than mp solid lifters? -320 grams extra to bounce around..maybe thats why they really need that beehive.

if it wasn't for their rockers...they could drop off the face of the planet for all I care.
LOL!! After my last experience with them I feel the same
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
....
 
ou812 said:
When you lose a cam, you have to tear it completely apart, remove all galley plugs and CLEAN your *** off!
Then use new bearings, possibly new rings (if metal was on the bores, it will cause the moly to peel off the rings and you'll have issues later on)and most likely cam bearings.

This is why I stress to our customers to dyno the engine. That 550.00 is worth it in the long run. When you try to break the engine in while it's in the car, you can have other issues that prolong the startup and break in procedure allowing metal to transfer from lifter to lobe or vice versa.

It would be a good idea to check the spring pressure when you get the heads off. Also check lifter bores for less than perfect fit.
The engine needs to be started up timed very close to ideal and ran immediately to 2500 rpm. Then I adjust the timing to about 38 or so to keep ex. temps down and run it there for 20 min.
After that, I idle it down, reset timing where I want it and adjust the floats and idle of the carb.

Hope it goes better for you next time.
Brian
Click to expand...

I agree 100%, my valve covers started to spew oil EVERYWHERE after 5 minutes on Brians Dyno. He shut it down and I cleaned up the mess while he went to get some diff valve covers....By the time he got back I had it cleaned up like new! I couldn't imagine trying to clean that up in the car $$ always well spent for the dyno time in my book for sure! I will always do the Dyno on every engine.

I rewired alot of my engine bay during the Build of the 410 also, luckily it was all correct and it fired right off at install. If something was screwed up and it didn't fire off right away without knowing that the engine was ok on the DYNO, it could have cost me tearing down the whole engine again if it wiped the cam out.............what a PITA!
 
Rice Nuker said:
Ive been considering building a metal stand with some gauges to break-in my future engine rather than the in-car break-in..
Click to expand...

That's exactly why I built mine. It makes re-torquing, installing inner springs, and the stupid leaks easy to do. The first engine I ran on it had a freeze plug that seaped. I fixed it in 10 minutes sitting on a milk crate. In the car would have sucked. It also lets me get real world numbers for idle vacuum, cylinder pressures, oil pressure and water temps and make sure the cam's good before the customer gets it.
 
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