Cam, Spring, Oil Discussion

[OldmanRick]

With the recent failures of so many flat tappet cams i have to wonder who's really to blame. We require more power so we get more and more agressive lobes that require more and more agresssive springs. I realize the lack of additives in the oil because of the, govt/epa, doesn't help the situation. A lot of us ran the old school cams for years with many miles and didn't have issues. He!!, i ran multiple builds on the street with the old .474 purple "soft lobe" cam and stock springs to 6,500 rpm's and put 20-30k on them. Made good power and were daily driven and never had a problem. I guess what i'm saying is, is it the oils fault or are we our own worst enemies.

 

[Abodybomber]

Rick,my loss was because of oil.BBChev,mild solid.Used to use Kendall(green,with zinc).Kendall got bought out by ConocoPhillips.They went to an inferior product.Subbed Valve 40 wt,lost a cam lobe(and the long block).Ever since then,I run additive/zddp oil.One more take:You are right on the faster lobes.I have also seen springs reconmended,with way too much pressure heeded occasionally.My .02,Tim.

 

[RustyRatRod]

I am really lookin at these direct oil lifters that have the hole in the face that rides on the lobe. I WILL be getting some for my 383 build....and will probably get some for my Hemi as well.

 

[OldmanRick]

Rick,my loss was because of oil.BBChev,mild solid.Used to use Kendall(green,with zinc).Kendall got bought out by ConocoPhillips.They went to an inferior product.Subbed Valve 40 wt,lost a cam lobe(and the long block).Ever since then,I run additive/zddp oil.One more take:You are right on the faster lobes.I have also seen springs reconmended,with way too much pressure heeded occasionally.My .02,Tim.

My neighbor used Kendall exclusively in his track only car. Always thought the green was kinda weird though.....lol. Looking back i was never really brand loyal at all. I just looked for the weight i wanted and if it was a household name and the price was right i bought it. Pennz, Valv, Castrol, even service station brands. First full time job i had (1974) was pumping gas at a Shell station. Used the Shell brand many times, plus the price was right. Only oil i refused to buy was Quaker State. At that time i never heard a good thing about it once.

I did put together a Pontiac 400 for a guy and had good pressure, 45 lbs. hot idle and around 70lbs. in the R's. The 2nd change after break in, about 1k miles, he wanted to try Mobil 1. Synthetics were relatively new to the market then so i made the change and it would barely hold 20-22lbs. at idle. Still had close to 70 revved up though? Couldn't deal with the 45 to 20 drop so i r&r'd conventional back in and never used it again, ever.

But times have changed and rollers are the norm in 99% of the daily drivers now. Been buying Castrol in recent years for those cars.

One thing i always did was massaged the valley's really well, opened up all the drainback areas, created pathways and even painted a few. That flew in the face of reduced windage but these were street driven engines that were required to idle quite a bit thus not alot of splash oiling available. I'd still to this day trade a few hp for enhanced drainback.

 

[1970Duster]

I use nothing but full syn (after break in of course). Plus I stick rollers in all my motors (yes it cost more but it's worth it to me). You also have to take into account that even through you see a drop in oil pressure with full syn you are still getting the same amount of oil to where it needs to be with high oil pressure with regular oil.

 

[Robbie2734]

I don't know about you guys, but I lost the cam in my 58 Chevy(301 ci). It was common back then. I don't think I ever lost any of the Cranes or Iskys I had. We even used re-cycled oil then, I couldn't afford anything else. Had to keep the Chev running..LOL