Tomei Cam Lobe damage - Salvagable?

[camerashy]

Hello, a long time since I've written anything here but here goes - 

 

Had the long block put back together a number of years ago by a reputable builder in Toronto, ON, it had been a while since he'd worked on anything with a Nissan name on it but he's done something somewhat unforgivable in my book - he never read the cam card. This is THE go-to one man show Drag engine builder in Toronto. 

 

Long story short, despite my insistence that new lash pads were needed for the 280 8.3mm lift Tomei Procam, he assured me the existing lash pads were in good enough shape. He used the STOCK L28 lash tolerances as oppose to the ones from the cam card. He never read the guide from Braappp that I'd supplied. I stupidly assumed that he would have machined the old lash pads to fit. Nope, he just threw them back in. A huge disappointment on what was otherwise a lovely engine build done really nicely. 

 

This is the result from him running it in on a run in machine. Can the cam be salvaged or is it toast? I can't really 'feel' any damage, but on a few of the lobes it certainly looks bad. 

 

Compounding this, and very related, I had in the head Bryan (ZCCJDM's) now NLA tooling steel rocker arms. There was no real need for these, but I had them, so they went in. Could that be the source of the issue as oppose to out of spec lash pads? I do have a set of old stock rockers that I thankfully held on to that I can clean up if needed with some new lash pads. 

 

Any advise would be most welcome. Happy to order a new cam and start clean, but if there's no need to, I'd rather avoid it. 

 

 

 

 

[rossman]

If the scoring is light, I'd have the lobes polished by Isky. They did mine for a reasonable price. I used new oem rockers.

[erikr]

 

 

I would recommend using brand new OEM rockers.  I have had similar problems . I think my problem stemmed from poor rocker arms. The top surface of the rockers where not flat so the forces from the cam lobes where concentrated on the high points causing spalling on the top surface of the rockers.