WHERE ARE THEY?

[BlackoutSteve]

Thanks Malc. ;)
The Camaro is "up and running" -as in out of restoration, but now I'm experiencing camshaft issues due to some incompatibility somewhere.

Recent events in a nut shell..
First issue was the solid roller in an old Mark4 block where a needle bearing lifter failed and took out the cam.
Lifter bores were oversized to ~.904 and needle lifter replaced with bushed lifters, along with one damaged lifter bore being bronze bushed.
Made 710hp on the dyno with AFR300 heads, 11.1 comp and 92 pump.Happy, but short lived.
I did a leak down test and found an exhaust seat had moved in one of the brand new heads (#4 was leaking down 15%). The head then came off for repair (AFR paid the repair invoice (...after some negotiations)) and the bronze lifter bore was also inspected for wear, where is had worn .001" in just 1/2 hour on the dyno.
Engine apart where I then bought +7/16" longer bushings and had them installed in all 16 bores, along with swapping from an Isky Redzone to a Morel UltraPro bushed lifter with much more body-to-bore surface area.
Engine back together, back to the dyno for exact same result (710) then in the car and my 1000 mile tappet inspection brought forward at 500 miles due to some lifter noise.
Found 4 of the 16 lifters gaining clearance at the bushed axle with three of them only .002-.003", but one at .025" which equalled ~.040" at the valve.
Some people hate lash caps but I use them and in this case they saved me and revealed weird wear patterns which somewhat point to the possibility of excessive spring clearance between full lift and coil bind. In this case about 1/4". With excessive clearance here, there theory is the springs' oscillations are not "self dampened" by the coils bunching up close enough af full lift..
So... Morels back at Morel for rebuilding and what looks like a 3 month wait from when I sent them and when they'll return.
..and replaced the as-supplied PAC springs with a set of Isky Super-RAD ToolRooms with only .070-.100" between full lift and bind.







Lot's of other stuff has happened too but that's where I am at now with the car.. Waiting on lifters to return for more cruising. At least it's winter here now and I'm not missing out on too much.
The burnout video library is getting very old and desperately needs updating.. Soon enough I hope.
Cheers Everyone!

We need pics of the Camaro..you got steelies?

Yep..

[Blazerteam]

Thats just perfection right there!!!.Less is more shown in one pic.Too bad about the lifter troubles.I went for a hydr roller in 2011,and havent had any problems with it.Bought a complete Comp Cams kit.I l lurked around on your build thread some years ago,that Malc linked to.But theres so much coolness around here and there,and i cant follow every project.Cool that you showed up here again..this site needs you too .

[DanStokes]

I think I said this but I'll repeat myself - miss you when you're not here! Bummer about the lifter hassles and hope you get a permanent solution soon.

Dan

[Loren]

Steve, not that I'm the expert but I've had a few lifter issues in the Challenger, including skidding one into the cam when the rollers went away...you sure wind up with a bunch more money every time you go in there and make changes, huh... Roller lifters side-load the bores worse than regular ones, then add lift and spring pressure to that...unlike a main/rod bearing there isn't really any natural force pulling the oil along from the supply hole into the loaded area and the oil stays pushed away and you get the scoring. You can imagine what kind of heat and pressure is going on there for two smooth surfaces to wear each other like that. It is possible get into there with a Dremel tool or some kind-of small grinder with a 1/8" round carbide cutter and cut a shallow groove from the supply hole up into and across the scored area so at-least there is a channel of pressurized oil that can get wiped up/down into there. It only takes a tiny groove, hot oil doesn't need much of a space to flow through. The friends who I got my heads from (long ago) were having problems that way, at the time my proposed fixes were roundly rejected as "should be unnecessary", but then made the difference for me. In my case there's actually extra oil lines plumbed where we have shuttles on the end positions in the heads to get around ports but that's another thing, you wouldn't need that in the BBC.

[Barry Donovan]

interesting lifter problem.
the heads are giving too much away.

oiling depends on head heat, the teapot that pulls it to the whistler.
I run a liquid boxer as a hobby. the big block just simply goes big, same stuff to think of...big block is still easier.
I have 2 solids on an overhead cam, the rest hydraulic..
damn aluminum.
I actually grew to hate it.
I want all iron from here on out..

although that edelbrock head article in the blog is interesting, about castings.
you may have a bad one.

[BOOOGHAR]

i hate using my phone for traversing the BS site, i use my hand held for about 98% of my interneting, just recently got my desktop puter back up, got rid of cable tv, got a new project truck

[Deaf Bob]

Still snapping photos, Booog??

[BOOOGHAR]

yea, taking pics of all kinds of different stuff, was recently at a taping of street outlaws new orleans taking pics

[Barry Donovan]

yea, taking pics of all kinds of different stuff, was recently at a taping of street outlaws new orleans taking pics

there is the photo man.
Wondering where you went.

I still have a favorite you shot...
I also got a bigger camera knowing that chance exists.

I like the boat shot. I have been diving into every scenario I end up at as well.