Febi vs Colt vs Frank06

Whitbread said:

For the umpteenth time, the problem with pd cams is NOT oil. It's incorrect geometry on the valve lobes. Yes, crappy oil and short trips are known to accelerate the wear, but no magic oil will cure a geometry issue. Any OE replacement cam with have same geometry issues as the original you're replacing.
I've done over 50 cams on cars owned by club members with white glove maintenance records from mile 1. They all needed cams between 65kmi and 150kmi. Random passat owned by farmer that was fed 15w-40 Rotella changed whenever from day one made it to 297kmi.
Im not going to get into politics on cam brands, all I'm going to say is only buy a colt or frank. They are both good and will last. Do not cheap out and buy an oe replacement as you'll be back doing it at next timing belt change. What's cheaper now?

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That's it. I'm switching to 15w-40 rotella. Worst case I'll have to trace the cam. At least I'll save some money if I get 100 k more to pay for the cam.

truman said:

I have my Franko6 reprofiled BEW set at -4.9, so my measurements confirm torsion for max mpgs. This cam has a very wide range of adjustment. I like mine a lot. Can't speak to the others.

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What has mileage improvement to you get? Where do you get frank06 cams? Anyone have a link. I'm going to have to research this torsion thing.

I googled franko6 and found this http://www.frankstdisucks.org

What gives? People buy stuff from him? Sounds pretty damning. And convincing. It's hard to make up a story like car riling off tow dolly and getting pics of it. Sort of I mean. I actually did that once. I feel their pain.

Biopete,

You have been lazy, and you are stupid too. You can search Frank right here on this forum, his posts have his contact info, and then you should call him and get a feel for what kind of guy he might be.

When you see a 1000% over the top defamatory internet page, not to mention registered in Iceland !!, do you ever feel just a little suspicious of the originator's motivation? You should, you should. There might be an ulterior or subterranean reason that page exists, duh.

There are lots of testimonials to Franks work and ethics all over this forum, look em up! I have found him to be a very talented and honest person and professional, a big reason I still have this car, and like it! I am not alone.

.....

Did you even bother to read post #27 above from Frank?

biopete said:

I googled franko6 and found this http://www.frankstdisucks.org

What gives? People buy stuff from him? Sounds pretty damning. And convincing. It's hard to make up a story like car riling off tow dolly and getting pics of it. Sort of I mean. I actually did that once. I feel their pain.

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That website is hilarious. A good way to humor yourself on a bad day.

^The pix illustrate the author's lack of ability to do even basic car work...using rocks as jackstands? That just seems unsafe IMHO.

Hmmm, someone calls you unexpectedly to come get them towed. Instead of telling them to call AAA, you offer to drop what you are doing and go help them out. You get there and the unexpected happens. I use a tow dolly a lot and could easily see how this happened, especially if you get too much speed or the tires/dolly are damp.

It is quickly getting dark and you have to make a quick decision:

a. Leave the car, dolly and customer in the dark, to go get the proper tools which will take 1.5 hours round trip
b. Use what tools and items you have handy to get the car off the side of the road.

It's easy to "throw rocks" (pun intended) after seeing one picture and only hearing half the story. Being in that situation and concerned for other's safety while losing day light would surely change your opinion.

abdtdi, have you ever talked to or dealt with Frank?

You guys are rude. I didn't throw any rocks. I wasn't being stupid. It be stupid not to ask when that is the first page that came up in googling. And no website of his own. How do I know the Tdi club posts are real? M I know nothing of the guy. If you think it's a foul to ask if frank06 is good to deal with or not, then You are the idiot.

biopete said:

You guys are rude. I didn't throw any rocks. I wasn't being stupid. It be stupid not to ask when that is the first page that came up in googling. And no website of his own. How do I know the Tdi club posts are real? M I know nothing of the guy. If you think it's a foul to ask if frank06 is good to deal with or not, then You are the idiot.

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BACK ON TOPIC...I'm loving my Colt Stage 2 cam. Had a great convo with Geoff explaining the benefits of it. Has anyone else experimented with the torsion value of the Colt cam? I'm still going for better fuel economy and it's set at 0.0 right now.

vwzips I was throwing rocks at the bashing website, not frank06. At least I thought I was...
I have bantered with him on these forums and he always seemed helpful.

biopete said:

You guys are rude. I didn't throw any rocks. I wasn't being stupid. It be stupid not to ask when that is the first page that came up in googling. And no website of his own. How do I know the Tdi club posts are real? M I know nothing of the guy. If you think it's a foul to ask if frank06 is good to deal with or not, then You are the idiot.

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Oh I dunno, I consider this to be 'throwing rocks'.

biopete said:

I googled franko6 and found this http://www.frankstdisucks.org

What gives? People buy stuff from him? Sounds pretty damning. And convincing. It's hard to make up a story like car riling off tow dolly and getting pics of it. Sort of I mean. I actually did that once. I feel their pain.

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If you've been on the board since 2005 you know the club postings are 'real' (what does that mean anyway) and you know who Franko6 is, unless you've been under a rock the whole time. And if you have lived under a rock, it's best to know your environment before casting stones wildly about and ticking off the indigineous population.

abctdi said:

vwzips I was throwing rocks at the bashing website, not frank06. At least I thought I was...
I have bantered with him on these forums and he always seemed helpful.

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Sorry abctdi I thought you were referring to Frank.

owr084 said:

Did you even bother to read post #27 above from Frank?

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No. Thanks for pointing it out. I just asked my questions and the. Got attacked. Frank sounds like a genius. Geniuses are often bad with people. Every mechanic I know has customers that love them and ones that hate them. It's just the way it is.

Still it's weird anyone questioning fran06 is getting attacked. An appropriate answer would be "he's legit. Great cams. Call him".
When all you see is frank06 and cam and google it to try to find how to get one you get the slander page. Who is not going to ask about that?


Frank you need a website. Pictures of shop, how cams are made, all that stuff would be a cool blog for people to read, shooing cart to buy cams. I'm a web developer. I'll start one up in trade for a cam

Abacus said:

Oh I dunno, I consider this to be 'throwing rocks'.
If you've been on the board since 2005 you know the club postings are 'real' (what does that mean anyway) and you know who Franko6 is, unless you've been under a rock the whole time. And if you have lived under a rock, it's best to know your environment before casting stones wildly about and ticking off the indigineous population.

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Sorry. I don't live on this forum and read every post. Only I have read one of his posts. It was good and smart. When you go to a job interview and they ask "what is this website abacussucks.com about?" Are they throwing rocks at you?

Lighten up and realize we're all here to help. If you've read any of my posts you'll see I'm not out to slander anyone and I lend helpful advice where I can. I've helped a lot of members with their cars and tool loan. So you must be living under a rock to not know that I don't throw stones at people. How's that ?

My only mistake was not seeing the question had already been asked. I can get 50 friends to vouch for my product on the forum. Doesn't mean it's a great product. So tdiclub posts don't mean frank06 is great and also people change and posts are old. I'm searching for a cam. Frank06 comes up a lot. I google it. I ask questions here. You attack me instead of answering question. That's stupid

blujett2.0 said:

BACK ON TOPIC...I'm loving my Colt Stage 2 cam. Had a great convo with Geoff explaining the benefits of it. Has anyone else experimented with the torsion value of the Colt cam? I'm still going for better fuel economy and it's set at 0.0 right now.

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Thanks. Damn , 1124.00 with the basic installation kit. I'm very sad

So we are all clear now, right? Frank is a real guy who works hard and is a well-known member of this community. The defamatory website is a smear campaign, perhaps with some information thrown in (accurate or not, I don't know).

Frank does have a Facebook page for his business if you want to look him up there.

Frank would be wise to trade you a camshaft setup for a really well designed Internet website.

I too am in the market for a camshaft setup for one of our two 05 Passat TDI Wagons. Like you, and most everybody else on this forum; I want to purchase the best quality product for long term use.
Quality is far more important to me than a low price.

I have been doing some reading and some research since last winter and I most likely buy either a frank06 camshaft setup or the Colt Stage 2 camshaft.

I have also heard the Febi camshaft is very good quality, but it will most likely develop the same camshaft lobe wear issues that the stock camshafts are now experiencing. That means most likely the FEBI Cam is a 150,000-160,000 mile camshaft.

Is it worth the $450-500 difference ?

After doing some fairly extensive research I bought a frank06 camshaft for my 2004 Passat which I purchased in early 2012. I only have 45K miles on the cam but I do not have regrets to have invested in this hardware vs. the OEM one (which if I recall correctly at that time was hard to get) for the durability (as a main reason).

Frank if you happen to drive by the Houston area please send me a note so we can meet up.


Ok, now I have a question: do the folks making the Colt Stage 2 camshaft also recommend specific motor oils for their cams among all the choices out there for the PD engines?

VeeDubTDI said:

So we are all clear now, right? Frank is a real guy who works hard and is a well-known member of this community. The defamatory website is a smear campaign, perhaps with some information thrown in (accurate or not, I don't know).

Frank does have a Facebook page for his business if you want to look him up there.

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I won't vouch for frank til I do business with him. I could be one of the unlucky ones that gets bad service. I've recommended people to shops that treated me great and they come back and say they had a bad experience. I understand. People can be in bad moods , have bad days and lose money on jobs. I know he business. I don't knock anyone. But reading his posts and all the people here vouching for him, I'll definitely give him a try if the price is right.

Biopete, none of my comments were directed at you or referred to you. I do agree that calling someone stupid here crossed the line. I also agree that it is perfectly reasonable to ask about someone's work or products.

What steered this in the wrong direction was one of the members here stating:

"Forgive me for being sceptical, but I'm having a really hard time believing the claims of some guy called franko6, who from face value appears to be some guy building heads in his backyard. Especially when there's a whole website dedicated to his dissatisfied customers."

Absolutely no call for those comments when they had never bought or used one of Frank06's cams. Instead of perpetuating an ignorant website he could have asked a simple question like "Is this accurate?" or simply followed his own advice and Googled a little harder or searched this website as there are threads on the subject and, IIRC, Colt cam early failure issues as well.

If someone has a real beef with a vendor and feels the need to air it, they should at least have a real experience with them, not an abbreviated phone call or vicarious experience from a misguided website.

FWIW, I have never used a Colt cam nor do I have any beefs with Colt Cams.

I have heard this over and over again by both Frank and Geoff that the stock profile slaps the cam open.

I put a dial indicator on the initial ramp of the stock and it opens progressively with increasing velocity.

Frank said:

I must ask, if a cam is worn out when .006" is off the lobe, what difference does it make if there is an extra .010" hardness when it is already hardened to .050"? I think that is salesmanship. It is the profile of the cam that makes the difference in life expectancy and the lifters which by lack of oil get beaten to pieces. And the lifters are the really hard part. Chrome-moly with a nitride cover...

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It is interesting how you ( Frank) can have 1400 cam out in the field and not have a failure and I include colt ( 1200 cams) and they say no failures as well. Did anybody concerned read the link in my post pg 2 of this thread.

The lubricant fluid film in a cam follower interface is .1 micrometers thick. The link gives all the known reasons for EHL ( elasto dynamic lubrication) lub film failure.

Do you think all the crap that is floating around in the engine after a cam failure will not pit the new cam. According to the scientific literature as soon as any particles, whether they are hard or not, that are larger than .1 microns are caught between the two surfaces and indents the surface, the oil film will be destroyed. The stock full flow filter
is 6 micrometers which means it passes particles 60 times larger than the fluid film thickness. I have also identified cam surface roughness on the base circle as another wear factor that is destroying the oil film.

I really bet the guy who I pissed off and created that website is having his laugh. He has a few people fooled, and for them, the 'benefit' of that website is working as he wishes it to.

Many people have come to me and asked me about that site. I invite anyone to do so. What I know I cannot say; neither on this TDIClub site or that pure poison site. But my purpose has been to tell whoever would like to know, that for years, I have laughed WITH those who have seen that site and as a rule, I am anything but what that site promotes. Anyone with half a brain could see right through that piece of work. TRY AND SAY SOMETHING POSITIVE AT THAT PLACE! You can't do it...

The reality is, if someone really wants to make a complaint, they can do it right here on TDIClub. There is a place exactly for that problem and as far as I can tell, it is objective. Instead, I am supposedly 'exposed' for a few situations (and by the way, I suggest anyone try what I'm doing and keep as low a number of complaints). There is not a shred of objectivity on that site.

I never told vwzips what happened on that trailer dolly incident, but he has it exactly right. I got my "Macgyver" hat on, and loaded the car. Mary helped. We worked with what we had on hand. The car's owner blamed me for damage that could not have happened by the loading of the dolly. Basically, they bought junk and took it out on me. "No good deed goes unpunished."

The other half truth is the fellow who got a dirty head with sand in it. At this time, we haven't cleaned a cylinder head by any other method than wire brushing for years. On rare occasion in the past, we have taped and blasted a particularly badly corroded cylinder head. One of my employees did the job incorrectly and got sand into the water jacket.

I made offers to clean the head, pay for having it cleaned, exchange it... everything except go out to the East Coast and fix it myself. He WANTED to complain and that is what he did. I offered to buy back the head. He posted it on Ebay and kept it there for months with it titled something like 'Franko6 Ruined Cylinder Head' and posted many of the same pics. I tried to have one of my east coast vendors go and buy it; no mention of me. THE GUY WOULDN'T SELL IT TO HIM! Explain that.

In any business, you are simply not going to be able to make some people happy. Or, in a competitive market, some low-life is going to find a way to trash your good name. Take your pick.

BioPete, you said it. It is a slander page. The best way, usually, to deal with slander is ignore it. To attack an attack site could be a sticky wicket. I appreciate your offer and advice, but you know same as me, putting up a website is 'the easy part'. I actually have one, but not ready for prime-time. Getting literally hundreds of pages, pictures, parts and performance stuff, plus the experiences for my shop would be a full-time job. I not only have a full-time job, I am usually pulling double-shifts at my shop. Advertising is for people who are looking for more business. We already have more offers come than we can find time to do and hiring the right person, any HR department will tell you, is very hard to do. We would love to find 'the right guy'.

Pete, I'll make a pm to you and would be happy to receive your input. Thanks for the offer. To tell the truth, for every one of those negative posts, I have 'over-the-top' testimonials of satisfied customers by the hundreds, if not thousands.

Now, isn't this a blog about cams? I sell a very successful cam in several formats and for several generations of VW's. Anyone care to talk about that?

Call me. Email me. PM me. I'll be happy to discuss it with you.

Frank

Thanks frank. Yep maintaining content is the hard part. But you really probably don't need much. Profile, shopping cart , and products. Although it may bring you more business than you want and be a headache.

Cheers

I am really glad for the lately self-moderating tone of this thread. Kudos for the effort to respect each other and move on to the more technical discussion.

Thanks!

James and Son,

We have produced closer to 1600 cam kits... and we have had failures. One was a WVO car, and we told the owner it wouldn't work. The other was an overheat and warped head. The overheat was legitimately out of warranty, but even then, we worked out a respectable agreement that made all parties good with the deal.

J & S, As for your ideas about RA and filtration, it must not be true, as we know the RA of the several cams. The RA is one thing, but the chatter is quite another. The cams that have chatter require wearing past the chatter before the RA would become an issue. First off, some of the cams, including ours, are parkerized. You can't even measure the RA as that is buried in the parkerizing. There were some cams parkerized so deeply that cracks were hidden. So you certainly would not be able to see any chatter or cracks until the cam has the initial break-in. If there are lines perpendicular to the travel of the cam, that is chatter. It is not beneficial. The chatter would have RA value at the peaks and valley of the chatter. Doesn't sound appealing to me...

We have our cams ground to size and polished with 40 micron paper. The finish is 3-4 RA and then it is parkerized. Before it is parkerized, we have seen them. The cam radii are smooth and clean. I can proudly say, we got it right.

In the company we use, they also provide cams for Chrysler/ Dodge Cummins engines. The Dodge factory boys came in with their specs and demanded the final finish on the cam to be RA 2. There is a $250,000 machine provided by our cam grinders for that purpose and exclusively used for the Cummins cams. It is bought and paid for by the Cummins cams that go through it. I do not believe this is necessary, in general, and my feelings are mirrored by the company we use. But the customer gets what they want, and pays for what they get.

As for the filtration, I am all for improvements. Anyone who wishes to filter their oil better than factory has our blessing, as long as it does not impede oil flow. That being said and based on the number of cams that have gone well past our expectation, we do not feel it is necessary to demand or impose a higher grade filter for the oil.

We do feel that the use of the best oil available is absolutely necessary (3X what Whitebread said). We have recommended the Schaeffer 9000 5-40, as a great priced and effective oil for many years. We also think that Pentosin HD 5-40 in the 505.01 certification is appropriate. We certainly allow any of the oils with 505.01 certification to be run against our cam except the Castrol SLX or TXT, as we have seen too many bad reports for issues of wear and worse sludging.

Filtration of fuel is even more important, in my opinion. Once again, we will not impose demands, but feel it is a move in the right direction that will help improve the life of the injectors. It should have water separation for best effectiveness. That is an entirely separate issue that needs it's own blog.

Here is a link that may help clear up our understanding of surface roughness.
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19750015918.pdf

Its an interesting read but visually use the figures on the actual page numbers 15 and 22 to understand the actual roughness I am talking about.

I use a magnifying class to see the surface finish on my Febi belstein and it looks exactly as the picture discribed as "rough" with some tearing as shown.

Now the cam a TDI member bought from ID parts for an extra 50 bucks and was a AMC billet cam, after inspecting its surface I would classify it as medium rough with no tearing.

Corey helped me with my request of surface finish and I hope he doesn't mind me providing the information from AMC.

"I assume that the surface roughness is our standard for lobes, which is 0.5 µm Ra. To get a better lobe surface finish than that, we would need to super-finish the lobes, which adds a good amount of cost. We do super-finishing for some OE customers on high-end fuel-injector pump cams, but very rarely other than that. In part, this is because the lobes need some roughness in order to retain and absorb oil into the surface of the lobe. This promotes good wear characteristics and longevity. If the lobe surface is mirror-polished, oil retention is typically diminished, and you would have a lobe that would wear out more quickly.

We can apply black phosphate coating (Parkerizing) to the cams. We do this regularly on most flat-tapped chill-cast cams, ever since the EPA encouraged use of low-zinc motor oil. Zinc is necessary to aid in proper break-in of the lobes. So for break-in of flat-tappet cams with no phosphate coating, it is recommended that customers use a break-in oil with zinc-additive.

It would make little sense to Parkerize a polished-lobe cam, since the Parkerizing process is an acid etch that would rough-up a mirror lobe polish."

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I was asking for a .3 to .2 micrometer RA surface. The rough side of super polishing is .2 and grinding usually is not below .2.

My Febi cam also had some chatter marks at one end of the cam just as discribed by Frank. Note I did not buy my cam from ID parts as I was on a quest to buy the cheapest febi on the net from a site that would accept a return. I did buy the cheap INA followers from ID and they measure the same as OEM ones I buy from dealer.

Edit: Frank, that is a good thought on the need for improved filtering on the PD injectors. Are you looking into that?

Edit2: I want it clear, I do not agree with the quote above although all the information is true to a degree. All the studies i have read state .2 RA is best and then breakin for .1 RA. but the studies do not use a breakin oil, so how much roughness you can get away.......?

the site frankstdissucks.org is currently down looks like the guy finally got tired of paying for a website, I have used cams, heads, injectors, and engine parts from frank over the past 5 years without a single issue from anything from him. I have a stage 2 bew cam in my brm and have put about 100k on it without any issues or wear, checked last oil change. I would not hesitate buying anything from him, he is always willing to talk and answer any questions when I call, I feel bad when we are on the phone for 20+ minutes because I know he is busy. so as far as quality and being there for his customers there is no one better than frank.

James,

When I got to hertz stress in the article I stopped. Here is the good thing. We aren't loading this cam into a space vehicle for a 15 year trip through the Solar System. It isn't going into an nuclear power plant. Even as anal as I am, I am not going to ask my cam company to increase the price of my cam another $100 for no perceptible benefit.
*Edit* I went back and quick-scanned the document for your nasa report. I didn't find anything that describes the hardness or material used in the testing. Seems important to me...

As much as it is fun to banter about RA, I am working with a very successful cam grinding company who is producing a superior product at a good price and they know their business. I'm sorry, but I do not agree that RA 2 is necessary.

We depend on our experts to tell us what is best and they have provided exactly what we asked for and then some. The lesson we learned about fussy cams is so long ago and so ingrained it will not go away. Cam break-in is a necessary part of an overhead cam's proper installation procedure. It is, as we have always said, CHEAP INSURANCE. When you see the mirror-like finish in the peak of the cam after a few thousand miles, I will leave it to you to guess the RA. I'm sure it's plenty good.

As to your other questions, There are already enough 'super filters' on the market already.

We don't think you can get fuel filtered well enough in a diesel economy car. I think water separation is important. The only good water separators we have seen are too big, bulky and expensive. Current time for R & D is ZERO.