http://www.hybridforum.net/showthrea...apsed&sb=5&o=7

if you didn't already know, crower cams tend to break, thats not news, here is the news, look what great customer service they have.
Robster

 

I saw what Danphan posted. Race parts have no warranty, people. Plain and simple. You think Mugen will replace your header if for some crazy reason it splits at the welds? Doubt it.

I've never cried over a part breaking, especially an aftermarket component.
It's part of what we do, and we should come to expect it.

Not 100% OEM.. it won't have 100% OEM reliability. It's an unfortunate down-side to this whole "car modification" thing that we all love.

 

yeah, course you're gonna respong like that, you sell em. But for somebody with a product with a known occurance of failure, you pull that product, they're still selling them and crower sure doesn't seem to be standing behind their product. Yeah, you're right about aftermarket stuff, however, its a camshaft. Its not a rod, or brake pads, or wheels, hhow often do you hear of camshafts breaking in other cars when installed properly? Crower obviously has a bad product and this is the way they respond to the market. So Mike, do you have Crower cams in any of your motors?

 

...sorry Mike, your wrong. If you can't built a better mouse trap, get into a different business... The Japanese started a trend years ago in the automotive industry by building in quality and longevity(sp?) into their OE vehicles years ago... the Japanese aftermarket manufacturers followed suit... the US has never caught on, still building a " product life" into damn near everything US produced...

__________________________________________________ ______________

Zeus, who's getting his big American *** off the soap box before he really gets going...

 

In the last month I have seen 3 OEM honda camshafts break. Not in performance cars either. One was an older accord and 2 in older integras. I personally have Crowers in my car. They show no sign of wear or anything. Think about this for a minute. Crower cams are $600, most others are much more. More than likely there are more sets of crower cams out there. Also typically the person buying a less expensive cam is trying to save money. They also try to save money on the install too. They may not have the proper tools to do the job right or they may take it to some one who figures they are not getting paid that much for the job so they may speed through the install. I broke my springs and retainers in with stock cams then I put in my 63403's. I took the extra time to make sure everything was torqued, lubed etc. I heard the stories just like everybody else. But I have seen and heard the same thing with just about every other cams too.

Just my 2 cents.

Josh


[Modified by slivic, 9:22 AM 1/15/2002]


[Modified by slivic, 9:23 AM 1/15/2002]

 

Robster, I have stopped selling Crower. Actually, I have not sold their products in over a year and a half.
Reason I dropped them is not due to component failure.. but rather, I was not impressed with the performance.
At the time of me selling the Crower cams, there was only one case I heard of breakage. This was John Gadd in Tampa. This did not scare me away, and I tried all three of their cam grinds. I never had any problems with their cams.
I just wasn't too hip on the power they made.

If my JUN2 intake cam broke on me, I would not go home and cry. I'd go home, throw the stock cams back in, and decide what I want to do next.
You think Alan Runato, or Steve Sakai, or anyone else who has had retainer/valvetrain problems got all whiney about it? No. It's part of the game. And I'm not saying this guy who posted on hybrid is whining, because he isn't.

People just have to realize that if something breaks, it breaks. It's part of life.

Warranty and covering the cost of parts are related failure is relevent to the type of part it is.
If a customer calls me, and orders a ITR flywheel. After 2000 miles, the flywheel cracks.. it's up for a possible warranty. I'd have to see if it was "abused" or installed improperly, but a warranty IS possible.

Aftermarket components are different. If a particular manufacturer decides to offer a warranty program, good for them.
Acura deicdes to do 12month/12,000 mile warranty on over the counter parts.
Obviously, Crower does not.

Just my opinion..

 

I think Mike has a good point here; we are dealing high performance parts, and with that comes some risk.

However, I think some performance parts manufacturers hide behind this idea. There is no excuse for poor quality and craftmanship regardless of the existance of a warrenty or not.

I think the lesson here is go with what you know works. People use Toda and JUN for a reason, that being that they have been used by many people without problems. I am sure their cams, etc have broken in some peoples cars, but on the most part they are reliable and quality made parts.

Crower is a fairly new player in the import market (at least as far as I know) so I think those who use their import parts are somewhat taking a risk, and those who use their parts need to realize this when they buy them.

 

I might be getting the Crower Nitrous Cams pretty soon. We'll see how they work

 

Well, you're referring to my incident. I too was not impressed with the power they made either. 11.5:1 CR B18c5 with the 63402's only made 193/126 to the wheels. Granted, it was still lean, but the torque really wasn't there. Then, at 1700 miles, the exhaust cam broke while pulling through 3rd gear @7krpm. The exhaust cam split into 4 pieces. This bent the exhaust valves, which the pistons then said hello too, which then mashed them into the head, and finally split the cylinder wall in one cylinder. Yeah, it got fuxor'd pretty good. Before you say I installed them wrong, I've been building things for years, I can handle proper cam installation. At the time mine broke, I had heard of three other cars having a similar problem.

At the time I was a shop owner, so I called my distributor. They managed to get Crower to admit that they had problems with this...hmm. They also offered me a new set . I declined, and instead got a set of their rods, reasoning if I had to resleeve the block, I might as well boost it. Crower wasn't very helpful in any case, and it took a month of negotiating between my distributor and Crower to get the rods.

The thing that really gets me angry is that I never even got to run that setup at the track. In a 2000lb CRX, it should have turned some nice times. Ah well. Now I just concentrate on trying to help people avoid the same pitfall I made and now several others have.

Oh and Mike, use my experience as a reminder - you break a cam, you aren't going to just be able to swap the stockers back in. A cam failure is exactly like a timing belt failure - pray you don't the entire motor.


[Modified by VaporTrail, 1:49 PM 1/15/2002]

 

I thought crower has long experience in making cams and they do not use regrinds.. I have the latest generation of crowers and break them in now..
The swap was done be a professional tuner who built up hundreds of Type R`s..

Well, hope everything will be fine... If they crack... I`ll have some

 

Crower cams suck donkeyballs. The shop I work at tried them and of the 4 sets or so that we had 1 set had the intake cam break BEFORE cranking the damn car!

BRITTLE cams. They are NOT billet, but they are new blanks - cast blanks.

How can any of you guys sit here and read the horror stories and STILL say you're going to buy these P.O.S cams?!

 

Yea, thanks for reminding me, John. I shoulda known better to post that.
I think the example I was getting at was any broken component in general, not necessarily a cam. LOL.

I need a Stoli and cranberry juice