camshaft failure update

[thehornworks]

This is a update to my post about all the camshaft failures. A guy came to my booth at MCACN and we were talking. He said he grinds his own cams. I asked about the failures, he said yea I know some guys at comp. They are all about numbers and they may be combining grind steps. He said usually a final grind step is taken to put the .001 taper on the lobes. He said call Bullet cams and have them grind you a cam. (69 Z28). He gave me the # of the owner. I call last week and he answered. Cool guy in his 70s, we talked for 25 mins. Been around racing for many years worked at Lunati. He said I will grind you a cam and you won’t have any problems. He doesn’t think that .001 taper is enough and if you have quality control issues.... well. Standard z springs are ok for beak –in, use lube and zink oil. Now for his old racer trick..Install cam ,lifters, push rods and adjust the lash. Before you put on the intake mark each lifter with a sharpe . Turn the engine over by hand 10-12 turns and observe the lifters. They should turn about 1 turn. If one doesn’t turn or is lazy swap it around with another hole. I ordered a cam from him and will give that a try.

[Too Many Projects]

That sounds great. Is he supplying the lifters too, or tell you which brand to buy ?

[thehornworks]

He asked if I needed lifters. I have a new set of GM lifters about 25 years old and he said yes use those.

[ZAPPER68]

Originally Posted by thehornworks

This is a update to my post about all the camshaft failures. A guy came to my booth at MCACN and we were talking. He said he grinds his own cams. I asked about the failures, he said yea I know some guys at comp. They are all about numbers and they may be combining grind steps. He said usually a final grind step is taken to put the .001 taper on the lobes. He said call Bullet cams and have them grind you a cam. (69 Z28). He gave me the # of the owner. I call last week and he answered. Cool guy in his 70s, we talked for 25 mins. Been around racing for many years worked at Lunati. He said I will grind you a cam and you won’t have any problems. He doesn’t think that .001 taper is enough and if you have quality control issues.... well. Standard z springs are ok for beak –in, use lube and zink oil. Now for his old racer trick..Install cam ,lifters, push rods and adjust the lash. Before you put on the intake mark each lifter with a sharpe . Turn the engine over by hand 10-12 turns and observe the lifters. They should turn about 1 turn. If one doesn’t turn or is lazy swap it around with another hole. I ordered a cam from him and will give that a try.

Now there's some good advice...My machinist uses nothing but Bullet Cams. His shop likely custom builds 10-15 engines a month, some of which are used in the oil patch and are worked hard.