My friends H22a broke his exhaust cam in 4 pieces. I know he had titanium retainers/ dual valve springs but don't know what cams he was running. It happened out of the blue. He took the car out, and when going into third gear, he noticed the car felt somewhat weak and when Vtec engaged, he heard the car backfire and the engine shut down. He took the valve cover off and found the exhaust cam in 4 pieces! What could have happened here? Engine was completely rebuild late last year and the car was running perfectly with no problems at all.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Mark

 

valves could have hit the pistons. Not good.

 

Could have just been a bad cam or they were tightened down improperly.

 

rebuild could have been shotty work.

what were the specs on the valves/retainers/springs.

 

btw, i've seen aftermarket cams break like this. but not oem.

possibly running reground cams?

 

It was either torqued to improper specs upon installation, or the cam was defective.

Please find out what brand and model of cams these were and post it. We would all like to know.

Andrew

 

did he do a valve adjustment after he installed the ti retainers? i have crower retainers they add +.060" height to the install and when i tried to do a valve adjustment i found out that the rocker arms were hitting the edge of the retainer, so i had to take a good chunk out of all the rocker arms with a dremel tool to properly clearance the retainers.. sounds like this is what happened

another interesting note: i only had this problem with the exhaust side! no rubbing on the intake side!

 

So was the middle lobe or the side lobes hitting the ret.? Did you notice odd wear on the rocker arms and vtec lobe?? How did you discover the problem??...I could get my valves adjusted fine but then the lobes would get eaten up. My problem is after I put these ret/valves/springs the cams and rockers are getting eaten up ina matter of weeks!

 

There were no signs of contact/abnormal wear anywhere. Cylinder head and all associated parts look brand new. It may have been caused by failure of the lost motion assemblies.

Mark