Derek from DDTECH came up this weekend for honda day and gave me a hand toying around with my old 1.8 supercharged motor so we decided that since i havent been able to sell my crane powermax cams we would just throw them in for ***** and giggles and run the car down the track. We didn't even have the cam caps torqued down all the way when this happened.




I had heard that crane had a horrible reputation for broken cams but i didnt realize it was to this extent, ive never seen this before ever.

All in all we did have a fantastic time at the track running just the exhaust cam, but ill never buy another crane product again in my LIFE.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8gf6u0oW_k

 

i snapped a crower the exact same way

only it broke in vtec at 8700. luckily the bottom end had forged pistons, valves bounced right off and twirled up in a pretzel

 

The casting on this thing looks like absolute dogshit, i hope the exhaust side holds out long enough to get my b20 done and I can run my DDTECH cams instead

 

i'm scared as **** of any aftermarket cam. even jun and toda make me queezy. i'm on my way out of hondas but i swear i won't run anything besides gsr or itr cams.

 

I have alot of faith that derek uses exceptional quality in all of his custom cam grinds, hes not the kinda guy to release a cheap product for the sake of saving money. My first set of cams are OEM b20 regrinds though because its a cheaper option at moment with the first profile. Those were polished and phosphate coated as well and they look fantastic.

 

this usually happens because the cam caps arent torqued in sequence

 

They were in sequence, i assure you.

 

wayyy back when i started doing my own work, i broke an oem gsr intake cam from not loosening the valve lash upon install and going out of sequence.

 

hmm, i have these cams.. Theyre still going at the moment.

 

So i contacted crane today about the broken cam, and their official response was "I'm sorry you've had a problem with one of our camshafts. Unfortunately we stopped making cams for this engine in 2008 and no longer have blanks to make a replacement intake." So it looks like im SOL and wasted about 350 bucks as I bought these cams well over a year ago and the store wont take them as a return.

 

Did u get them from that online place that had them on clearance? I think i got them from the same place.

paid 350 for both cams,springs and retainers

Sucks that happened man.. Maybe use a B20z/LS intake? I have some b20b cams laying around here...

 

We have the LS intake and crane exhaust cam on there now, worked fine for the setup but it was merely a ***** and giggles type of install, my new b20 with DDTECH regrinds is waiting in the wings in my garage, just need to get the transmission work done and then thats going in. I was actually selling the set but it wasnt selling so we decided to just take them down from the classifieds and throw them in, I would have sold them used with the head down the road. So much for that lol.

 

oh thats right.. i remember you trying to sell these a while back..

that sucks.. now ur suck with a franken-head

 

If you're queezy about TODA and Jun, yeah... you're gunshy.. Those use the same materials as OEM, so maybe it is time to stick with your other cars for a while.

You've had so much bad luck with your builds, I'd get out too.. . Maybe you just need a break is all. Sometimes that's just what it takes.. A break.

 

We wanted to see if this tired 1.8 had anything left in it. In the next few months, rob's new built b20 with a new JDM auto GSR tranny will be going in and i'll be retuning it.


A lot of people down rob's setup because it is a automatic, and quite frankly, he's losing a lot more then us Manuel guys through drivetrain loss. I know my Girlfriend had a pretty fun time picking on him, but for what the setup is, its very quick.

We decided to put the cranes in because they were there, and his motor wasn't big enough to utilize the cams i had profiled. While hand tighting these cams, they were feeling iffy, i didn't like the way they felt when i was pulling them out the box.

As a Audi/porsche tech, i have access to all types of manuals and i used specifically a integra. We didn't even finish torquing half the caps and it just snapped, we weren't even on the cap it snapped on.. everything was even and we were using a "quality" torque wrench.

The car ended up picking up almost 4 mph after the retune, and it still has Meth 50/50 injection left on it. This was just a fun and experiment thing to do while i was up there. All this while IATS were well over 190 in the supercharger.

 

The auto is just beat at 200k, im not sure if its losing it in the converter, or the clutches, but the amount of lag time inbetween the gears is taking about a full second off the 1/4 time the way it is now. With the precision 3000 stall, GPXX clutch packs and plates, and the regulator and pump springs it should rip the tires loose in second on the highway with that new motor in. Im very confident that its going to put down the numbers i want it to when its all put together.

 

lol basically, i'll probably be fine in a few months/year after doing something else. just temporary burn out

 

alright... in for updates

 

I've seen this happen to cams when installing them. If you don't back the lash off, and get a little aggressive in your steps. And it doesn't happen on the cap that you're torquing down, I saw it happen on the cap after where it broke. Due to trying to tighten it down over the lobes that are trying to push the valves open. Not saying thats what happened, but something bound up upon install.

 

This is unlucky and i feel for you. I had a Jun 3 intake cam snap on me and i wasn't offered any kind of replacement what so ever. I followed the book to and the cam was installed correctly. With me it snapped at around.8000-9000rpm and 2 months+ after being installed.

I had a professional opinion on why the cam broke to and it was a casting issue.. maybe it was just a one off with me though. Regardless to my issue i still think they make bad *** parts and i still rate them as one of the top Japanese tuning companies.

 

I will not disappoint.