Cam/lifter Failure

[Swartz]

Hi,

So after draining my oil and finding all the chunks of metal I pulled the motor and tore it apart. You could see one of the lobes on the cam had been beating on the lifters leaving the lifters with a dished feel and the lobe of the cam rounded off. What caused this?

also

what cam/lifters should i be looking at to replace?

The motors a 2054cc 74x94, started out as one of airspeeds short blocks
40x 35.5 ported outlaw head (from airspeed)
48 IDA's
scat 1.25 rockers


Thanks guys!

[Swartz]

any ideas?

[Cameron]

There are several reasons why cam and lifters fail.

How many miles have you put on this motor? That may give us a clue.

What kind of valve springs? Cam? Lifters? Oil?

 

[Swartz]

i was running 20w 50 oil
cam and lifters, im not sure of the brand, the cam said 110 on it, they were in the motor from airspeed when i bought it.  Motor only had about 75miles on it at most. not sure about valve springs, maybe dannyboy can chime in? he helped me with everything when i was buying it.
 

[James Buchan]

How did you break it in?

[dannyboy]

Im not sure what brand those cams/lifters were.....
there have been some lifter/cam incompatibility issues in the past few years, and nobody has had any difinitive answers
but I were needing to replace my cam/lifters, I would give the new CB lifters, and get a cam from them aswell. Ive heard of a lot of people have had good luck with them...

[Swartz]

I pumped oil threw all the oil lines, filter and cooler than broke it in running it at about 2500rpm for 20min, than drained and changed the oil. BUT, when i first started it i had the wrong o-rings between the cooler and the block and had a large leak, could that be the cause of this?

should i just go ahead and buy new valve springs while im at it?

Also what size cam? valve springs?

Thanks

[Hansk]

, could that be the cause of this?

 

No , unfortunately it probably would have happened no mater what. It has happened a lot and not just us vw people. Call it parts incompatibility , low zinc in oils , low qaulity parts or a combo of many things. Sounds like CB is the way to go right now. Lets hope so.

[James Buchan]

Send your heads to Kroc for a bit of breathing room and throw a k8 in there...

[Swartz]

The heads were already ported by kroc thru airspeed when i bought them.

 

[James Buchan]

then there you go! K8 with Cb 2 piece lifters and call it done!

[Swartz]

What about valve springs? im still unsure of whats in there now.

[dannyboy]

while the motors out, sent the heads back to darren, have a good valve job done, and have him put in some new springs if it needs it (most likely)
darren has reccomended a set of specific bugpack springs to me on a number of occasions, I would talk to him about it.....

[Cameron]

i was running 20w 50 oil
cam and lifters, im not sure of the brand, the cam said 110 on it, they were in the motor from airspeed when i bought it.  Motor only had about 75miles on it at most. not sure about valve springs, maybe dannyboy can chime in? he helped me with everything when i was buying it.

Wow! 75 miles is a short life.
Did you break in the cam with single springs?  

[Swartz]

no, dual. I'm gonna switch to single though.  

[James Buchan]

Use singles for the break in and then switch to duals once your good to go.

[Swartz]

Whats the difference between the two? from what i've found its up to 6500rpm and than over 6500rpm?

[Swartz]

Where can I find the cb lifters? I was going to order them off their site but they wanted $60 shipping + duty!

[Oil Phil-M]

If you haven't finished rebuilding your motor yet contact this guy and pick up some Brad Penn 30wt Engine Breakin oil.  Run it no more than 200 miles then switch to the 20w50 weight oil he has available.  Both oils are jammed full of antiwear inhibitors so much that it kills the effectiveness of catalytic converters so they call it a racing oil but it can be used on the street.  Most oils they are making today have cut back the antiwear inhiitors to get beter emission levels which can lead to rapid wear problems with flat tappet engines.  Breakin oil is a non-detergent oil so it has better properties to cling the metal and has even more anti-wear inhibitors than regular oil.  I hear Brad Penn oils are the best stuff going for our style of motors, all the rave with the Porsche crowd also.  A guy named Charles from LN Engineering has done a wack of analysis of today's oils if you want to read the whole story.  I had to contact the oil manufacture directly to find out who carried it in the Lower Mainland and this is the only contact I was provided.  Better luck with the next breakin.

Pacific Western Performance Inc
Jeff Alton
20350 68th Ave unit 61
Langley British Columbia
604.313.3494 PHONE
 

[Bruce]

...  Run it no more than 200 miles then switch to the 20w50 weight oil ....

A new engine should not be using 20W-50 tar in this country.  Lower vis oil is what a new engine with tight gaps should use.

[Oil Phil-M]

A new engine should not be using 20W-50 tar in this country

I find my bus with the extra weight runs a bit hotter but you're right the oil is too thick.  I've traditionally used that wieght but with my recently rebuilt 2.0 now on the road I'm getting about 10psi higher than normal at the 180f; 3000rpm set point of 42psi.  I originally thought 10w30 was the next viscosity down in the Brad Penn line which I find too thin but they do list 10w40 under their motorcycle oils.

I've always blended oils but this year I was hearing from a number of people that you shouldn't mix the viscosities and that its not as simple as ending up in the middle between two viscosities when you mix them equally so I went with the 20w50.  Apparently the manufacture Brad Penn states does state somewhere one can blend 10w30 and 20w50 which might be the answer to getting a more appropriate viscosity for one's particualr application