Excellent Article About Cams, Lifters, and Failures

[Joe C.]

I have seen valuable "nuggets" about camshaft wear issues scattered far and wide, but never before compiled and collected all in one place.

Follow the attached link. Read it and use it as your camshaft "Bible". Pay particular attention to pp 1 & 2 re: Parkerizing, which supports my reasoning why Parkerizing cam lobes (the treatment is never applied to the cam bearing journals) is valuable for resisting corrosion while a new cam is sitting on the shelf. A much more effective durability treatment is Ion Nitriding, which imparts a case hardening to the entire (nodular iron, although steel roller lobes may be treated, as well) to a depth of as much as .005". PP 3 & 11 discusses the "defective" casting myth (I have seen signs of early and excessive lobe and lifter foot wear on the Speed Pro CS118R 30-30 blueprinted cam, which was run in properly). P 18 discusses the merits of using low ratio rocker arms during cam run-in.:

http://www.camcraft-cams.com/index.php?page=cam-failures

[Duke W.]

Re: Excellent Article About Cams, Lifters, and Failures

I got this far in the article and stopped reading.

"Why then are we seeing an increase in cam failure? There are several contributing factors. The first and likely primary factor is the lack of zinc additive in most of today’s oils. As I understand it, all oils for highway use have NO ZINC. Zinc has, for many years, been one of the primary antiwear additives in motor oils. Due to factors involving contamination of catalytic converters, zinc has been outlawed in motor oils for highway use. There has been a decrease in zinc content for several years but as of January 1, 2004, it is eliminated in all oils for highway use. If an oil contains zinc, it must be labeled “ for off road use only” or “Not for highway use”. Diesel oils may be an exception. Several of our racing customers have switched to 15W40 diesel oil with good results. (6/1/2007 Word is out that zinc has now been removed or substantially reduced in the diesel oils)"

A completely erroneous statement like this casts serious credibility concerns with the whole article and the author's knowledge. It's stuff like this that creates all the internet myths.

Duke

[Joe C.]

Re: Excellent Article About Cams, Lifters, and Failures

I got this far in the article and stopped reading.

"Why then are we seeing an increase in cam failure? There are several contributing factors. The first and likely primary factor is the lack of zinc additive in most of today’s oils. As I understand it, all oils for highway use have NO ZINC. Zinc has, for many years, been one of the primary antiwear additives in motor oils. Due to factors involving contamination of catalytic converters, zinc has been outlawed in motor oils for highway use. There has been a decrease in zinc content for several years but as of January 1, 2004, it is eliminated in all oils for highway use. If an oil contains zinc, it must be labeled “ for off road use only” or “Not for highway use”. Diesel oils may be an exception. Several of our racing customers have switched to 15W40 diesel oil with good results. (6/1/2007 Word is out that zinc has now been removed or substantially reduced in the diesel oils)"

A completely erroneous statement like this casts serious credibility concerns with the whole article and the author's knowledge. It's stuff like this that creates all the internet myths.

Duke

Agreed that the statement is not completely accurate. The author points to zinc as the protectant against sliding friction, but in fact, it is phosphorous. Zinc is the contaminant for catalytic converters, but must be incorporated as part of the zinc-dialkyl-dithiophosphate molecule.

What other information in the article do you find inaccurate?

When you make direct comparisons between design parameters (ie: LSA) in camshafts used with old v new designed heads (reference the thread entitled: "Cam Artical In Chevy HP Magazine" ) and try to pass it off as a valid comparison, then when should we stop reading your sometimes well informed but very often inaccurate and rambling diatribes.

I have been trying to teach you how to make "apples-to-apples" comparisons for quite a long time, now, but I have apparently failed.

[John H.]

Re: Excellent Article About Cams, Lifters, and Failures

I got this far in the article and stopped reading.

"Why then are we seeing an increase in cam failure? There are several contributing factors. NO ZINC.

I agree. This guy obviously has no clue, and has done zero research on the issue, or he wouldn't knowingly publish such a load of misinformation; that's like saying "The following article will explain how to make your engine run only on water, so you'll never need to buy gasoline again."

Credibility quotient = Zero.

[Jim D.]

Re: Excellent Article About Cams, Lifters, and Failures

I agree with Duke and John. When an article starts off with nothing but B.S., why read any further?