naviathan

Good question. The lobe that was on the rocker on the right is completely flat on the nose, the middle is worn down narrow, but still round and the left one is perfectly fine. Something isn't making any sense here.

Just a quick question for BRAAP, what would have caused this dug out groove or indention that's only on the two rockers that were on the worn lobes? I know it's hard to see so I circled the spots that are worn. It's not like it's a slight groove either, it's really dug out.

That was the biggest thing MSA brought up was the type of oil I use. I understand the whole zinc issue. I've read the numerous posts on it and I honestly think they need to come up with a zinc additive for older vehicles.

Wow, that's incredible no one was seriously injured. Very lucky. Hope it all works out. They did get the guy that t-boned them right?

I received my first Z in 1998 in my junior year of High School. My 1986 Toyota Corolla had bit the dust finally and my father gave me a choice between a $1000 1981 Toyota Celica GT or a $1000 1981 Datsun 280ZX. I test drove both cars. The Toyota felt bulky and horribly disproportioned. The 280ZX however handled great, was a little sluggish, but felt more like a sports car despite the automatic. So we settled on the ZX and I paid my father back over the next couple of years. The suspension was shot, but I didn't know that at the time, to me it was my first real sports car and it was a blast to drive. I never knew anything could whip around the back roads at speeds like that. I use to load that car up with all my friends, 1 or 2 passengers and 2 in the hatch. The car never missed a beat though. It ran strong and fast for years. It left me stranded once. My best friend in school and I went for a late night ride as we often did. We just drove for hours in no particular direction just taking random roads and voting on which side of a "Y" to take. Eventually we hit a dead end and pulled onto the shoulder to turn around. At that point the car stumbled and died. Somewhere along the way the alternator keeled over and the battery kept us going until we slowed to turn around. Stuck on a back country road at 1AM we had no idea what to do or where we were. I had no cellphone signal and every house around us (which wasn't many) was dark. We pushed the Z up the road aways, mostly to get the blood flowing as it was really cold outside, until we came to church with a parsonage right next to it. The living room light was on in the parsonage so we stopped and I knocked on the door. An elderly woman answered and asked very timidly what I wanted. I asked her if I could borrow her phone so we could call home and get some help. She turned to her husband who was standing behind her, repeated my request and waved her off shaking his head. She quickly told me, "no sorry" and slammed the door shut. So we moved on up the road further, still no signal. I noticed a box truck in a driveway and had an idea. I grabbed a piece of mail out the mail box and stuck the antenna to the phone up to the side of the box truck and got enough of a signal to make a call to my mother. I she was only able to understand that we were stuck in Beaufort on South River Rd. and we lost the call. Never got the address. So being the concerned parent my mother called the Carteret County Sheriffs department and explained the situation. The sheriffs response when she gave him the road name was, Ma'am, there's 5 South River Rds. in Beaufort. So they sent out 5 tow trucks. About 4AM one finally showed up. The man was very nice hitched up the car and towed us to a gas station. He hooked his cables up to the battery to charge it and we all sat inside for a couple hours and drank coffee and ate. Finally when day light broke the driver said we should be good to make it home so long as we don't use the lights. We thanked him and made sure the car ran and he pulled away. Never once asked for money or anything. Surprisingly we made it back to my place around 11AM that morning and the car died again right as we pulled into the driveway. I replaced the alt in that car and drove it until the summer of 2000 while I was in the Army in Fort Hood, TX. Someone ripped one of my T-Tops out with a crow bar in the parking lot of my apartment complex and stole everything they could rip out of the car. I decided, stupidly I might add, it was time to update. I was a young PV2 making enough money that I should be able to buy a newer car. The Z was sold for $200 to a local Mexican mechanic and I fully expected it to be towed across the boarder and sold in Mexico. Shortly before I got out of the Army I saw the car again. It was owned by a woman in her 30's living around Fort Hood. I talked to her about the car and it had apparently changed hands many times in the few years since I owned it. She had it for a year and it had been changed sooo much. Someone had swapped the interior out for a turbo interior that wasn't in the greatest shape. The auto tranny was swapped for a 5 speed and the EFI was pulled in lieu of dual webber carbs. the car ran well, but just wasn't the same. It felt loose and everything rattled constantly. The woman let me drive the car and I decided then and there I had to get another one as soon as I could afford to. In 2004 I bought my 1977 280Z. Drove it daily until I left for Iraq in August 04. Got back from Iraq and bought a 79 Fairlady that was (and unfortunately still is) rusting apart, a 1981ZX identical to the one I owned in high school, but a 5 speed and a $200 parts car. I'm still driving the 81 now and she's been a great car. If I can the MS-II tuned in and a new cam in the with proper lash pads she'll be on the road again here soon. For now the Harley is my only transportation. I think that's a long enough story.

Someone over there has a brain:

Oh God, now that's just asking to receive irritants from the Honda world on our forums. Personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with high revving high hp engines like the Honda's. I would never own one myself, but I would get one for my wife simply because she couldn't handle a real engine with lots of torque, it would scare the daylights out of her. A little feminine Honda would be perfect or a Mazda Miata...

Sounds like electrical problems to me. Check the battery cables over real good.

Ziggy, you're awesome. Just let me know what you want. What head do you have your cam in?

Ok maybe not sold it, I apologize, they shared it. Hell I don't know how these car companies work. I know that within the corporation I work for we have several different divisions and if we want something from another division we have to buy it from them. Hell they even charge us tech support for a simple phone call.

I know. I don't get it either, I checked the wipe pattern and I had a small shadow at the bottom edge and a slightly larger shadow at the top edge. I figured being that it was still on the pad all would be well. As I said before I know they weren't perfectly centered, but they appeared to be good to go. I guess next time I'll have to make damned sure they are perfectly centered. I still haven't heard from MSA, but I figure I know what they're response will be. I guess it's time to start cam shopping again. Any suggestions? I'm thinking a regrind this time would be cheaper and last longer.

Ok here's some more pics, this time of the rocker arms. The wipe pattern is lower than it was when I checked it initially, but it's the same across the board, why just the certain lobes wiped out and the others are fine, I have no idea... Rocker arms removed: Rocker arms themselves: Another shot that might be clearer: So at this point I don't know what's going to happen. I sent he pics to MSA's warranty department and now I'm just waiting to hear back. Hopefully tonight.

Those guys are idiots. Although they were right about something. The QUAD 4 is very torquey, but only the 1995 and earlier models at 2.3L. In 96 they went to a 2.4L QUAD 4 that was horribly weak. But, it's not a pontiac engine either, it was originally designed by Olds and later sold to GM. I had a 95' Grand Am GT with the 2.3L and that thing was awesome. Wish I still had that car:

This is very good advice. I was in Iraq at the time I was purchasing parts so I didn't have the option to pull a cam and send it out for regrind. I was hoping that the MSA/Schneider route would be worth while seeing as I wasn't going super dramatic in my upgrades, just a mild push. Seems I'm paying for that now.

Well, hopefully I won't have to start over with a different short block entirely, this engine has been great with compression numbers upwards of 170. I'm going to drop the pan (I hate dropping the pan on a ZX) clean it out, pull the pump, check it out, I have another turbo oil pump still in the box fortunately and hopefully I'll get something out of MSA. If not, I'm convinced this a Schneider cam problem after reading the archives this seems to be quite common. Of course those threads that had these issues were immediately ridiculed by many many people saying it was lash pads or clearances or anything but the "KNOWN" problem with Schneider's soft cam blanks and lack of hardening.

Yes I did, it looked fine. I even had my machinist there when i put it together, he said everything looked good. I really think this is one of the bad blanks that came out a couple years ago. Doesn't anyone remember that, but me? Huge deal, lots of people with wiped out cams, turns out it was bad metallurgy? Same time frame that I bought my cam in.

It's lacking a lot of items. It's missing the AAR, the throttle body is upside down leading me to believe it could be a 240SX throttle body. It's missing the vacuum and bypass hard lines that are usually mounted to the side of the intake. I have a Fairlady 280Z and it's not missing all that stuff.

I would agree with cygnus, but I don't know given the after photos here. http://www.snopes.com/photos/medical/forknose.asp Snopes still hasn't verified it's authenticity, however it looks plausible.

That was my thought. For the extremely short amount of time the car was running while I was trying to tune my MS-II it couldn't have done that much damage unless the metal was poor in the first place. If MSA decides to send me a new cam they had better send the block off plates this time like they were suppose to last time. I don't really like having the spray bar in there anyway. It gets in the way a lot. Still no word from them as of yet. I hope they call me back soon. I really need to get this resolved if nothing else for piece of mind.

The Harley Matte black paint is an actually paint, not a primer. It appears similar to primer, but being a paint it actually seals water out completely. You should be able to find some matte black at NAPA. Just make sure they're aware you don't want a primer, but an actual paint.

Check everything. I believe there's some warmup dwell changes and such you should set to 0.

According to MSA using the spray bar with the internal oiling cam is perfectly fine and shouldn't have any issues. Look there was plenty of oil up there even at idle, I checked. I'm not some kid pulling your leg here, I've actually checked for everything you brought up when I first started hearing the valve train clatter. And as far as oils go, I've been using Mobile 1 Synthetic for years with no issues, I'm not changing my oil because a cam manufacturer can't make a decent cam for whatever God forsaken reason.

I'm not sure MSA would be very happy with me if they got this cam back for warranty replacement with dings in it...Not a bad idea though. I may try it just to see.

Next time Mommy says eat your carrots, you eat them damn it!

BRAAP, Man it's not always good to hear from you...That said, even though it's disheartening, it's definetely well needed information. My machinist has been doing this work for a long time. He builds dragsters most of the time and I've never had a bad experience with his work, nor have I ever heard of anyone else having a bad experience with him. I went to school with both of his daughters, who are also very skilled, but we won't go into that here... Anyhow, suffice it to say I doubt it was the machine work. I don't doubt the cam package I received however. It was the bundle that MSA use to offer and it was purchased around the same time we were finding the soft CWC cores. I purchased two of these kits though, the second one a couple months later and the second was installed in a friends Z and he never had any issues with it at all. So much for assumptions. Now I think it just waits on a decision from MSA. Too bad I couldn't get a refund for all my hard work, sweat and blood I've put into getting this thing back together. Since the cam has to come out, what would you recommend to keep the tensioner from slipping this time? I really don't want to go through the whole tearing apart the front cover ordeal again.