EmminoDaGreat

Long read, I know.....


Here is a run down of what I have been dealing with for a friend/customer.

His engine setup is a 2.0 LS/Vtec Roughly 9.5:1 compression, Supertech valvetrain (70lb springs), Valves, etc... Car made 400 whp @ 15psi w/ gsr cams prior to this "incident".

I will refrain from stating the cam, although most of you will already know or suspect which manufacturer it is.

Low down, so I can be fair. Customer picks up said cams on the street, used. But with very minimal if any wear, all marking and specs show the cam should be what its said to be...

Fast forward to a week later, customer installs cams, does valve adjustment, drives to shop, I fix a broken bolt in his cam rail, double check his work.

Car goes straight to the dyno after this, keep in mind roughly 20miles of driving.
Car goes through its normal drivability tuning, then low cam tuning, then the first vtec pull. Keep in mind, AFR's are all within reason, nothing crazy is going on etc. Hits vtec, doesn't seem to hit well, at this time do maybe 1 or 2 pulls more to see if it was consistently shitty. Which it was, car now makes 300whp...

I stop dyno session, back the car off, verify its still in time, go forth and do a compression and leakdown test, all of which came back very consistent, and smooth. I was relieved as I though something failed along the lines of the engine ( he has been running it for 3years now). So I scratch my head for a little while and decided to pull the cams out again to see, and I was going to throw the gsr's back in, load up his previous tune and see what it made. But alas, when I pulled the cams out I noticed this...

After pulling the cams out, I immediately pulled vtec solenoid and oil pan/pickup etc to clean it thoroughly... Also pulled all the rod bearings/mains to check them for any issues that could arise from a heap of metal going through the engine...


This is the exhaust cam Cylinders 2,3 low cam completely rounded, and 1,4 have pitting in the same cam lobe.





This is the Intake beside the exhaust cam. keep in mind they where both in this motor that I was told "you must have a motor issue not a cam issue, our cams don't do that"






Now, I have had previous issues with this companys cams(different engine, k series), cnc heads. I can accept that maybe this was a defect, cool we caught it before it decided to clog the pickup and trash a motor..

So now onto the part that I didn't like.

Customer contact's cam company, explains the situation, also explains he purchased them 2nd hand, yadda yadda, just wants to replace what he had for a reasonable price. So then the representative for the company goes into great detail how it couldn't be their precious cams fault, it was either inferior installation, poor tuning, or an mechanical issue with the engine (no oil pressure)... And that there was nothing he could do.

I was a tad aggravated by this because all you have to type in is blah blah blah cam eats self in a google search and it will show up.

So then customer purchases 1 exhaust cam from them, to complete his set that he will now sell. He receives it and sends me this pic: seems to have a dent or low spot on the low cam.



Needless to say, I am sorry for this long rant, but we have installed/tuned 100's of cars w/ similar or exact setups. And I don't believe that they where correct in pointing the blame at things like they did. So my question for those of you who have made it this far in the thread what do you think happened? I know its all chicken/egg here now, but I have provided physical evidence to them about oil psi, tuning data afr's, seat pressures,compression etc... But maybe I missed something in my disassembly.... So I ask if anyone has had an issue like this where it was not the manufacturer of the cams issue, or an incredibly high seat pressure spring set. I usually keep issues between product manufacturer and myself, but they really rubbed me the wrong way how they treated my customer/friend.

Also, I will be installing a new set of GSC T1's to see how they do, this will be my first test of these cams. Thanks for reading!

doood

iTrader: (1)

does this company's name start with an S and end with a 2?

so the low cam lobes did that in 20 miles of driving and a little dyno time?

EmminoDaGreat

@dood, there is no way to tell exactly how many miles since they where purchased second hand. But in this particular persons vehicle they lasted around that length...

tougeAP2

sounds like either crappy cams or insufficient oil supply to he cams IMO

turbohatch96y7

iTrader: (15)

That cam threw me off.
I was like is this an ls head? Lol I've never seen that before did you find chunks of metal in the oil?
What company is it? I would love to stay away from this cam manufacturer

EmminoDaGreat

Well, the cams where soaked in oil when I took them out, and the car had great oil pressure ... was also hitting vtec, so it had to have some pressure... Plus the motor was running fine before.


Turbohatch, yes there where very fine metal particles in the pickup, vtec screen etc. Could have trashed a built motor fast.

slowcivic2k

What do the rockers look like? I would check the oil passages under the cam girdle. Its definitely odd it took out the lobes in one spot all the way around. Is there any lift on that cam at all? It looks like only base circle to me.

EmminoDaGreat

Rockers all look normal, I suspect the other two corresponding lobes w/ pitting would have done the same thing. There appears to just be base circle now... LOL...

MonkeyMagic

slowcivic2k

The lobe fell off? If it ground away it is going to leave marks on the rockers. Even if it cracked off its going to leave a mark somewhere. I would have to say if there is no damage present on the valvetrain, then the cams were like that when they were originally installed. Might not even have had a lobe on it to begin with.

Provided the base circles are all the same, it will still run, poorly pre-VTEC, and then you'll probably experience a good jump in torque at VTEC, probably some hesitation at switch. I would inspect the VTEC assemblies for notching/damage at the ends of the rockers and the pin.

EmminoDaGreat

I haven't messed with the car, still waiting on new cams, but I am going to check over the rockers thoroughly before I install new cams.