Martin has reference this exact thing before when looking over my off the shelf cam that I got. It was nothing crazy, but apparently the lobes were a little aggressive. I am hoping that it will be fine. Mine however is a Lunati Voodoo 277/283 cam. Are aggressive lobes with all manufacturers experiencing these same incidents?

What is the best way to monitor this sort of thing and check for problems BEFORE they happen?

 

Nothing to do with a cam core failure though in that post.

Think about the number of people on this site alone that run comp cams versus Lunati, Isky, Cam Motion and Bullet. This is the only site on the entire internet or place in the world where comp cams are failing or are said to be destined to fail.

I also never referred to the standard 5160 core as not being a billet core.

I've been recommending Valvoline VR1 on this site since before I started working at Tick, long before this thread was ever made. It's good to run GOOD oil in your engine no matter the cam that's in it.

 

So you know what the issue is? Is there an issue? Or is it just internet hearsay led in the back corners by more than a few vendors?

Not to be an ***, as I think you're great, but you yourself said Tick sold in January 1/2 the total number of cams Tick has sold in the past 5 years. That's a testament to you working the forums/giving out great advice. It also means you don't have a huge installed base of cams to draw from to know whether or not the issue is related to the cam or the entire combination. And as of now, you've never seen the issue. Doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Just means you haven't seen it.

Either way, that's a legit point to make. As I said, you're left fighting Comp's battles for them - and there's no one doing any analysis on why the cams failed - they just failed. When you consider the galling issue on the trunion upgrades as well, you begin to think the outsourced partner who does the surface hardening for Comp is doing some **** poor QC. Or maybe it's the oil. Or valvesprings. ?!

Even before I got off the Comp bandwagon, I was leery of their QC practices. If you recall, one of the things I was looking for was cam doctoring, because I was going to be so close with PtV and didn't want a cam 2-3 degree off or 2-3 degrees off on the ICL/LSA. But I was like that before all this happened, because that's been a known issue for years. And not just in the LS1 world.

 

dyno numbers sell, ive always said this. Its alot worse in the import community though, most guys don't even know what trap speeds are lol.

 

I do statistical research for a living, fellas. It is NOT a surprise that the most reports of complaints come from what is BY FAR the dominant cam manufacturer. If, for example, 75% of cams are from COMP, and there is no increased failure rate for COMP cams, then 75% of complaints will be... drum roll.... about COMP. Add to this that most of the lower volume manufacturers sell to more experienced builders with specialized needs, who are more likely to be experienced engine builders and run the cams less often in daily drivers-- then those cams are less likely to fail under their intended use. I don't know this for sure, but I'm throwing out likely scenarious for why it may appear that COMP cams fail more often, even though the may (in reality) have the same failure rate as everyone else.

 

This thread reminds me of the establishment, the talking heads for the establishment (media), the whistle blowers, and the people.

The establishment issues dishonest BS to the people. The whistle blowers try to inform the people of the BS. The establishment issues the talking head media a bunch of BS to tell the people. The talking head media then discredits whistleblowers by calling them conspiracy nuts. Then more people start witnessing the comp cam failures. Just sayin...

 

Wow....

 

Demand dictates market as well. Everyone wants MORE power and at the cheapest price with the least amount of work.
95% of all criteria in choosing a cam "I want 500 rwhp" on a budget. It is like all these noobs slapping in monster cams without considering any advice against it because "It sounds wicked".
Companies are forced to dish out ramp rates that should (in my opinion) never be sold for street DD applications and should be used for racing application only. (Expl: LSK lobes), but nooo, every Tom , Dick and Jerry wants a Magic Stick. Cams like MS4 make me cringe when in DD applications.
BTW (monster cams sound wicked because of high overlap). Truth is you do not need massive durations to "sound" good, you need overlap.
Mind you, I'm not against running extreme setups for street, but you have to be willing to spend the $$ to make it work together and achieve potential. Otherwise why bother to have a car that sounds like a dragster but does 12 sec 1/4 miles.
And YES vendors priority is to sell more, because that is what pays salary and increases revenue. It is a business.

 

I've had problems in the past with Comp, not in an LS app, but in BBC apps. This is going back about 12 yrs ago. Same thing, chewed lobes. I then switched to Lunati, problems went away. This was in a 433 BBC that i ran in my 68 nova, roller cam. That same motor is still running well today for a younger guy i sold it to, as a weekend driver, drag strip use. Motor has around 25k on it and well over 500 passes at the track. No problems with the Lunati cam, no special magic oils. Castrol GTX 10w40 it's entire life. I had problems with a Comp cam in the same motor, before 1k miles. Cam looked like it had 200k on it when it was pulled.

I see 12 years later, Comp still has problems. Sure some can be attributed to wrong springs, pushrod lengths, etc. But just oil? C'mon, these are roller motors, not old flat tappet cams. With a flat tappet cam, i would only run a high zinc oil(racing oils).

 

Dumbest post I've read all day. Congratulations.

 

I completely understand what people are saying in here abou how oils are important and they are. I also can comprehend how comp is THE biggest cam manufacture and thus they will have failures. I can even see that the demand for high ramp rate lobes has driven comp to make some aggressive things.

What I still don't agree with and the reasons I won't be purchasing a comp cam if or when the time comes is that there are SIMPLY too many cases. As many others have said in this thread it's one thing that the cams are failing. Ok it could be the set up, spring install height etc. However when sponsors like Damian and Geoff have stacks of comp trashed cams and none from lunati or cam motion, to me that throws the set up question out the window. You know those people are still running the same set up just with a different bump stick.

If comps lobes are indeed too aggressive and are destroying their own cams then to me that's mostly their fault. Other companies are making just as good of numbers with lobes that don't destroy themselves. Damian and Geoff have already commented that the failures they had seen often came from valve trains that were set up correctly. I'm not saying that some comp cams don't die because of improper set up but at a certain point you have to stop looking at the set ups and start examining the cam.

Martin has always been great and is awesome at what he does and I would gladly have a cam specs by him. However if I did I would either want it ground by cam motion or have it done on an 8620 core. Nothing against him but there are simply too many failures for this to be an isolated thing. I would also make sure it's a regularly bought cam or have a degree wheel ready seeing as many people report custom cams to be very off. Like it or not comp has done this to themselves and have lost a lot of good business from this getting out here

 

Haha, lately it seems youtube sells cams! All the folks I have talked to lately and recommended that they speak to Martin or Liljohn have asked, "do you think they can grind one with a nice lope like in this youtube video?" Not the best method of cam selection, but it is what some want more than anything!

 

One thing I honestly don't know is about how lifters interact with the cam. Do they ride a film of oil like the crank does on bearings or are they in constant metal to metal contact? If the former then I would think shear strength would be more important, if the later then I would assume that it is important to have more anti-wear additives. Is this same thing happening with pushrods and lifters with newer oils? I would think they would experience the same forces that the cam does.

 

The whole point of this thread is about durability. So saying you and your boss are putting a part on your race car says not a lot about durability. Lets say you make on average 20 runs a week. That's a fairytale, but lets go with it. Thats a whopping 5 miles a week plus idle and tuning time. I mean damn bro, you cant compare that to a street/strip car and definitely not a daily driver. So ok, lets go with the failures are with certain aggressive lobes from comp that other manufacturers dont use (I wonder why hmmm... ) and that Comp has the highest market share. Lets use those as the explanation for the phenomenom of some people experiencing or witnessing an inordinate amount of Comp failures. Whos been marketing these aggressive ramp rates to people with street cars? Also, if a material core "upgrade" will fix the problem, why has that not been done? Im sure people would be willing to pay extra. Lastly, is it even a material issue at all not liking modern oil, or is it improper valvetrain? Or is it both? And someone mentioned before that comp is definitely aware and watching this thread by now. Well comp, get off the sideline and in the game. Tell legal to stfu, come in here, take off your global corp hat and put your gearhead hat back on, and set things straight.

 

Looking at your sig I can tell why you wrote your post like you did.........



Back to the topic at hand. I have used comp over the years in BBC, SBC, LS, Ford, and Dodge applications. I haven't had an issue with comp yet. When I did have a valvetrain failure, it was the lifter that gave out and it happen to be the ford motor. I have a SBC turning 8200 on spray with a solid roller with 760 lbs of open pressure and it is a comp cam. All the motors I have stated above had a break in period with a good conventional oil and then only the LS got synthetic, the rest got conventional.

I will still use Comp, but with a guarded eye. As always I will use a good oil, and valvetrain that is setup correctly.

 

Roller lifters operate in a mixture of both - think about your tire at the contact patch. The load causes the tire to deform, and the contact patch becomes larger. The same thing happens with a roller lifter, the wheel deforms slightly at the contact, and that creates a very thin film that separates the wheel from the lobe. The lube engineers call this EHL lubrication. The shear stability of the lube is critical to maintaining the EHL film. Different oils will behave differently, and the more aggressive the valvetrain design, the more shear forces are placed on the oil. Accordingly, one oil that works fine in a mild valvetrain, will fail in an aggressive valvetrain. A 10W-40 can have more ZDDP than a 5W-30, and the sheared viscosity would be better as well. The more you push your engine design, the more important the little details are.

 

almost forgot to mention that the "Cleanliness" of the oil is just as critical. Timken has excellent information on roller bearing failure prevention, and they suggest that upwards of 70% of rolling element bearing failures are related to contamination. Not that we want to get off on a tangent about filters, but it is an important consideration when it comes to roller bearing failures.

 

Hi NASCARguy,

Do you mean HTHS Vis. as in the link below?

http://www.hddeo.com/hthsarticle.html

Christian

 

I must admit this thread had me nervous like you. My motor now has 10k miles on it. Havent had any issues "knock on wood" I know my engine builder has done many builds using comp cams and I asked him about it and he hasn't seen any failures with their cams. He also recommended using Rotella oil which is all I have put in this engine and I have seen some of the used parts out of old engines he has done that still look great with plenty of miles on them. I know he does check everything very close and my cam, along with several others I know he has done have been spot on as far as spec, centerline etc. I did talk to Geoff and my cam uses pretty mild lobes since its a daily driver.

 

btw, the cam out of my old motor had ab 30k miles on it and was pitting and wearing badly, it was a cam motion core from a few years ago.