Well I was pulling my cam (TR230 installed by previous owner) for a swap...found a dowel looking thingy on the oil drain plug. Prior to pulling the cam, the car threw a cam sensor code. Then one time it back fired/missed on start up.
When I went to unbolt the cam gear the bolts were LOOSE!! and the cam dowel was sheared off!!
Can you imagine the carnage if this thing would have let go, on the juice, WOT half-way down the track!!

 

IMO, consider yourself lucky that you didn't wait any longer before doing a cam swap!
That would have been a real mess!

 

Lock tite and a torque wrench are your friend

 

Good thing nothing went wrong though!

 

You are definitely lucky to catch that before the bolts backed out completely or broke because that would have been some serious carnage.

 

I'm surprised these aren't a more common item.

It would be cheap insurance against this ever happening.
http://www.briantooleyracing.com/com...-kit-5461.html

 

Got the lock tite and torque wrench....ordering this beotch right NOW!

 

The more I think about it...I'm gonna change my username to "Mr. Lucky"

 

It definitely would have been a catastrophic engine failure if those cam sprocket bolts would have backed off or broken. You don't really realize how lucky you really are till you sit back and think about it a little bit.

 

They hit the cover before they back out completely and make a hell of a racket.