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Test Data: Comp Cams 987 Dual Valve Springs after 60,000 miles & 9 years
Background
My 99TA had about 30,000 miles when the heads and cam package was installed in 2002. Today the 99TA has 157,000+ miles with the same heads & cam package. The valve springs were last replaced in 2008 when the car had about 95,000 miles. The TA sees daily driver use and some fun from a roll on occasion but hasn't been to the drag strip in over ten years. Rev limiter is set at 6,800 rpm and I've hit it several times but normal shift point is 6,200 to 6,300 rpm. Very seldom does the car see 6,500+ rpm.
I know there are many good valve spring solution these days that are better than the 987 dual spring. I think TEA did fantastic building a 5.3 Stage 2 cylinder head that proved high quality and affordable. After 125,000 ÷ miles, I think it's proved the XER cam lobes are suitable for daily driver's with reasonable care and upkeep.
My TA was always allowed to fully warm up before seeing more than 3,000 rpm seldom saw more than 2,000 when warming up. Warm up was normal water temp on gage and oil pressure at normal for full warm up - typically 42 pounds for this car.
Thank you to Norris Motorsports for doing the new BTR Platinum valve spring kit install and saving my old valve springs and hardware. Likewise, I want to thank Land Speed cylinder heads for helping me get the old valve springs tested.
The 987 Springs held up as show below. The springs were disassembled, cleaned in a parts washer, rinsed, dried with compressed air and reassembled. They were tested using a seat and the height was taken into account. All 16 Springs were tested but not in any particular order.
Comp Cams states on their website new springs may have pressures vary by about 10 percent.
99 Black Bird's valve spring test results.
I will post some retainer and hardware pictures later.
Last edited by 99 Black Bird T/A; Mar 13, 2017 at 09:41 PM.
Comp Cams 224/224 XE-R .581/.581 lift - customer ordered on a 113 LSA with 4 degrees advance. Per cam doctor check before install was within 1 degree on all specs, almost a 225/225 on 112.x LSA. This was back in 2002 and Comp was nearly perfect with what my friend and installer spec'd.
Lol, yes the springs are still square and look good.
They are still suitable to use based on pressures but there no way I will reuse them.
The retainers are scary looking with 125,000 + miles XE-R cam lobe love...going forward I will always replace them when getting new springs.
WOW. Great read. Thanks for sharing. Super cool to see stuff like this and someone who has and will take the time to share instead of throwing new stuff in and being done. Those retainers
Awesome, thanks for sharing - I really like how you look at things in detail. If anyone is interested, I could add pictures of a spring and retainers that was tortured and eventually broken by an MS4 cam
Awesome, thanks for sharing - I really like how you look at things in detail. If anyone is interested, I could add pictures of a spring and retainers that was tortured and eventually broken by an MS4 cam
Thank yoy. Yes, i wouldwould like to see the spring & retainer.
Great information, thanks for taking the time to measure and post. Did you measure with the titanium retainers? Wonder how much the grooves in the retainers are reducing your spring values. Also good to hear the XER setup went that long. That is one thing I have always wondered about.
I have a 224/228 XER with 0.581 lift and I do similar with the warm up. Don't go above 1,500 RPM until oil is at 160 and then not over 2,000 until oil is over 180. With the six speed I can still move with traffic at those low RPM it just means you are not getting there as quickly. Also currently running the Amsoil Z-Rod oil.
Vettenuts, pressure check was without a retainer as we wanted to see how the springs held up. That's an excellent point!
I wish I had thought to check with a the best and worst retainer on the same spring to see what effect it would have. I still have the parts do maybe later I can check.
My car may have had less actual spring pressure. The valves never floated that I could tell for what that's worth. We did have the old 987's shimmed to help make sure they kept effective pressure.
The retainers on the 99TA both old and new are tool steel.
Awesome, thanks for sharing - I really like how you look at things in detail. If anyone is interested, I could add pictures of a spring and retainers that was tortured and eventually broken by an MS4 cam
Took some time, but here are the pics attached. Sorry for the bad quality, I did not get my DSLR out for it and took them with the phone.
One of the two springs is broken and after it the valve has kissed the piston many times, beating hard on the retainer
I realize it's been a year now, but still... thanks for sharing that data about valve spring life. It's great to see an example of how parts age and under what circumstances.
That said, how was the powerband on this cam? Was there any particular RPM threshold where it felt like power was kicking in? Those specs seem pretty close to what I'm looking for.
Thanks again!
Originally Posted by 99 Black Bird T/A
Comp Cams 224/224 XE-R .581/.581 lift - customer ordered on a 113 LSA with 4 degrees advance. Per cam doctor check before install was within 1 degree on all specs, almost a 225/225 on 112.x LSA. This was back in 2002 and Comp was nearly perfect with what my friend and installer spec'd.
Lol, yes the springs are still square and look good.
They are still suitable to use based on pressures but there no way I will reuse them.
The retainers are scary looking with 125,000 + miles XE-R cam lobe love...going forward I will always replace them when getting new springs.
The 224/224 XE-R cam was an excellent cam good power and driveability. Mine had 4 degrees advance ground in my friend that installed it and the heads, degreed the cam in with a little more advance to bring the power on earlier.
Peak was about 5,700 rpm and shift point was 6,300 rpm with the TA's oldset up IIRC. If the cam had been degreed with less advance it would have peaked higher. However, we set the cam up for best torque. Peak 404 wtq. The best part was 380 wtq at ~ 4,000 rpm IIRC. Peak of 418 whp
It was pretty good set up in 2002-2003 with an LS1 Edit mail order tune.
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Test Data: Comp Cams 987 Dual Valve Springs after 60,000 miles & 9 years 
