What caused this camshaft wear pattern

[70rrclone]

I have a Comp XE285HL that is failing. .545 and 241 247 @.050. Im running 1.6 rockers for .581 lift. I am running the valve springs comp recommended. I have about 1k miles on the combo. I started noticing a lot of lifter/rocker noise. I found this on tear down. Ive never see a cam wear like this. Any ideas?

 

[jimbosride]

I'm no cam expert but this area looks like maybe something in the oil?

 

[70rrclone]

It was broke in with driven breakin oil and mostly valvoline vr1 10-30 oil. I think I did one oil change with amsoil 10/30 high zinc oil. Filters were wix . Ive never seen a failure like this. Im going to a solid roller and I want to make sure my bases are covered.

 

[Cranky]

It was broke in with driven breakin oil and mostly valvoline vr1 10-30 oil. I think I did one oil change with amsoil 10/30 high zinc oil. Filters were wix . Ive never seen a failure like this. Im going to a solid roller and I want to make sure my bases are covered.

You might contact Comp and see what they say but that cam is wiped. How many miles are on it? And you know you will have to pull that engine apart to clean out all the metal debris....and check bearings etc, etc, etc....

 

[70rrclone]

Ill contact comp and see what they say. It already out. Its going to be disassembled inspected cleaned and reassembled. It going back together with a bullet solid roller

 

[70rrclone]

Cam has 1000 miles.

 

[Kern Dog]

I wiped out two of those cams, the exact sane ones. In. 2006 I swapped in the first one, it crapped out within a couple hundred miles. The second one lasted a few years but less than 1000 miles total. I never determined exactly what caused the failures.

 

[autoxcuda]

about 3-4 years ago a buddy had two XE268 go bad back to back 3 weeks apart on his run stand. They had break in oil. A lot less aggressive cam than the OP’s.

I had a new MP cam/lifters from 1999 I sold him and no problems. And no problems to this day.

No more Comp cams for him after that. He changed to Bullet since then.

He had a comp solid with EDM holes in 2012 that’s been fine. And I had a comp solid from 2011 that had been fine since too.

 

[69Bee]

Those lobes are losing metal and will only get worse quickly. The cam and lifters NEED to be replaced.

 

[Cranky]

Cam has 1000 miles.

See what Comp has in a roller....they are 'supposed' to have good products. That said, I experienced poor customer service but that's been many years ago.

 

[70rrclone]

I talked to someone at bullet. Chris I think. Sorry im not great with names. But he suggested a solid roller. 667 lift 250 256 @.050
I have a comp catalog and it seemed to be between the comp 286 and 292 solid roller. At this point I'll just do a custom roller vs a off the shelf. I take it with with a grain of salt but the bullet roller that was speced makes better numbers than any other on dyno sim 6.

 

[Cranky]

I talked to someone at bullet. Chris I think. Sorry im not great with names. But he suggested a solid roller. 667 lift 250 256 @.050
I have a comp catalog and it seemed to be between the comp 286 and 292 solid roller. At this point I'll just do a custom roller vs a off the shelf. I take it with with a grain of salt but the bullet roller that was speced makes better numbers than any other on dyno sim 6.

These days I'll take a roller any day vs a flat tappet cam. Seen way too many go through the wiped out cam crap and spend way more money fixing things than what a roller would have cost them.

 

[autoxcuda]

These days I'll take a roller any day vs a flat tappet cam. Seen way too many go through the wiped out cam crap and spend way more money fixing things than what a roller would have cost them.

Solid roller?

I keep hearing about hydraulic retrofit roller issues.

 

[70rrclone]

Solid roller only for me going forward.

 

[70rrclone]

I looked into hydraulic roller but never got a warm fuzzy about using one.

 

[Runcharger]

I agree: Solid roller non Comp only for me these days as well.

 

[68-500]

That chipped area on the peak looks like a manufacturing flaw to me. Maybe the case hardening broke loose?

 

[GTX JOHN]

I WILL NOT run a Comp cam made after 1/1/2021.
The made a change in their camshaft core around that
time and many people report major issues since then!
I think many aftermarket camshaft manufacturers started
changing their core in that time frame as they ran out of cores.

My .02 = For Free!

 

[padam]

I had a Lunati, a little smaller, fail with the same pattern. I’m unsure of the miles, not more than 2000, 3 racing seasons.

I replaced it with a comp solid flat tappet because I didn’t have time to make big changes. The cores have the exact same casting numbers.

If I have to change it again it will be to a solid roller.

 

[Bighouse]

Comp and Lunati and both owned by private equity.

I’d start looking at the small guy operations like Powell.