cam wear

Please, take a look and tell me what y'all think. This is not a stock cam and has <800 miles on it. Is it breaking in correctly?

Any more pics of the cam?
Were the lifters renewed at the same time?

Any more pics of the cam?
Were the lifters renewed at the same time?

what cam is it?
a regrind can have some more wear then a OEM.

Where is the oil?

bhodgkiss - I wanted to make sure and get detailed shots of the wear on the nose of each lobe. And, yes, the lifters were replaced with nitrided ones.

mk1-83 - It is a regrind, but like I mentioned above; it has less than 800 miles on it. I've never had a new cam, before, so I really just don't know what to expect.

JFettig - That was kind of my thought, too. It didn't seem to have as thick of a coating as usual. Although, at the time of pics, I was changing the second round of break in oil out. It was in for the day trip to Raleigh and back (~770 mi). You can see a bit of it accumulated in the various corners of the head and on the bearing caps. It was a dark honey color, when removed. Are you thinking the top end isn't getting proper lube?

Is there any lube on the cam and lifters? There is usually oil sitting on top of the lifters and around there

These lifters were wiped down a little bit from when I changed my cam.


Look at all the oil in the general area - keep in mind that this is about 8000-9000 miles into the oil change.

JFettig-
Yikes! Those followers are hurtin for certain!

There definitely was a light film over the entire surface of everything and a bit heavier coat on the follower face. The reason it probably isn't so apparent is likely because it just spent some time in a soak tank, so there are no old deposits built up and the break in oil was not all that dark and soot-laden. Before the head was rebuilt, it looked very similar to yours, save the gouges in lifter face.

I have my usual T6 in there, now. I will have another peek at it, tomorrow morning, since I will be working all day, today.

Oke regrind my db cam also a regrind it looks a bit better than your cam.
I'm use 10w40 semi synt. no problems so far.

In my experience, regrinds can look very bad during the breakin process before they look very good.

I inspected my cam around the mileage you did. I wouldn't worry about it. If you want to check again, give it a few thousand miles first (I went to 8k).

Jnitrofish said:

In my experience, regrinds can look very bad during the breakin process before they look very good.

I inspected my cam around the mileage you did. I wouldn't worry about it. If you want to check again, give it a few thousand miles first (I went to 8k).

Click to expand...

Thanks for the reassurance. This does ease my worry, significantly.

I do still question how much oil is getting to the top end. I wonder how big of a mess will I be looking at if I crank the engine (with fuel shut off valve disconnected) with the valve cover off...

have someone ready to kill the starter once you see the oil fountain

The third pic from the top it looks like the cam lobe on the far right has a crack. What is up with that?

Looks like dust to me.