Wow, all this talk about these junk Hughe's cams. The last 4 engines that I have built, I used all of Hughe's recommended componets. Two of them were 440's, my 360, & a 340.
The 440's were hyd. cammed & the small blocks were solids.
All engines were pre-oiled, spinning the oil pump with a primer rod & rotating the crank at the same time.
Each engine was set up to fire instantly for break-in, varing the idle from 2000 to 3000 rpm.
I used Huge's oil additive & valvoline 10w30 racing oil, it has Zinc @ 1200ppm.
The only one that we removed the inner springs on for break-in was the 340.
I have had absolutly no problems with any of them.
The 440's are in street cars, one with 8 years of run time & the other one with 7 years. My 360 has 4 seasons of racing on it. I have approx. 900 passes on this engine. It shows no sighns of wear. I did replace the valve springs before the 2010 season.
The 340 has approx. 40 passes on it.
I guess I have been lucky. I not saying I'm any better than any of you guys at cam installation, I'm just saying that I havn't had any of the mentioned concerns with the Hughe's stuff.