naviathan Posted August 8, 2007 Share Posted August 8, 2007 I bought an MSA Stage II cam back in early 05'. I never got around to putting it in an engine until a couple weeks ago when i tore down my DD to replace the headgasket and do an MS-II install. Well after about 1.5-2 hours of tuning and checking settings the valve train started making a horrendous clatter. I figured that I might need to re adjust the valves so i pulled the valve cover to find this: I called MSA and they said the warranty department would have to get back to me, probably tomorrow. I know they'll do what they can, but this raises another question, all that metal is in my engine now, what can I do to ensure I don't wear something else out as a result of this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSM Posted August 8, 2007 Share Posted August 8, 2007 Wow that really sucks sorry for the loss. Did you pre-lube it? New Rocker arms? Maybe you lost oil pressure sometime over these two weeks? I seriously doubt you did that in 1-2 hours of tunning unless you weren't getting any oil up there. How were you clearences? You did a cold and hot check? Obviously you need another cam, but unless you beg and plead I think you will just have to bite the bullet and buy another one or use your old one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cygnusx1 Posted August 8, 2007 Share Posted August 8, 2007 Did the new head gasket block any oil passages? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
naviathan Posted August 8, 2007 Author Share Posted August 8, 2007 I used assembly lube on everything and I put a brand new turbo oil pump on, primed it of course. I did everything by the book. I set it cold and MSA doesn't recommend setting these cams hot, they even go as far as to mark out the hot settings on the cam card. There was plenty of oil in there, I made sure of it when I was turning it over. I would have thought maybe it was something I did wrong if it wasn't for the fact that it's only 5 out of 12 lobes that wiped out. The others look fine. Had it been oil starvation I would have expected all of them to show similar patterns. I double checked all my clearances before ever even thinking about putting the valve cover back on. Not to mention there are documented problems with the CWC billets that most fo the cam companies were using and this I think is one of the bad ones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
naviathan Posted August 8, 2007 Author Share Posted August 8, 2007 Oh no, lots of oil movement in there. I made sure of that. I pulled the oil cap and checked while it was running even. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators BRAAP Posted August 8, 2007 Administrators Share Posted August 8, 2007 Naviathan, Sorry to hear of your cam failure. Definitely sucks, big time. Now some of what I’m about to say, you probably aren’t wanting to hear/read, I’m only posting this as it may help out when you go to reinstall your replacement cam and it may help others from experiencing this same fate. First off, those worn off lobes are now in the bottom of your oil pan and in your oil filter as fine metal particles so you will want to remove the pan to fully clean out the debris and also be sure to remove and flush the oil pickup as the screen will catch the larger particles. Depending on how much of the particle laden oil was slung against the pistons and cylinder walls, some slight cylinder wall scoring is common in such instances as well, but generally not severe. Also, the oil pump will be scored as it pumps unfiltered oil. Generally, the pump will still function just fine, but you will want to remove the oil pump and disassemble it including the bypass plunger as metal shavings will be lodged between the plunger and pump body. Again, I’m sorry this isn’t what you wanted to hear, but the pan, pump, and pickup need to be cleaned to reduce any further damage when you run the engine with your new cam. The first thing that comes to mind, especially being as you have the “dual” oiling system, (internal gun drilled AND spray bar), is cam wipe pattern, i.e., wrong lash pads for that head and cam combo. Has this head been overhauled in the past, i.e. surfaced on the top and bottom, valve grind etc? When you installed the cam did you verify the cam wipe pattern on each of the rockers? Did you install new lash pads, other than stock? Schneider cams have been known to be soft which can be the cause for this failure. With both internal and external oiling as you have, the wrong lash pads are the usual cause for premature cam failure which I feel the cam manufactures are at least partially to blame for cam failures due to improper lash pads. MSA/Schneider, and a few other cam manufactures have their “recommendation” for a specific lash pad for each of their cams. I whole heartedly disagree with that practice. The cam wipe pattern needs to be verified for every valve and the appropriate lash ordered and installed for that valve to attain the proper wipe pattern. This should be done for every new cam and after every valve job and/or top surface/cam tower shims being added. There is absolutely NO way those cam manufactures can know if a customers head was overhauled back “to” factory specs or any “specs”. More often than not, when someone takes their overheated or tired L-series head to a machine shop for an overhaul/valve grind/surface, they end up with a basic valve job and surfacing just to get it back on the road. Items such as cam tower shims, valve stem heights, etc, will be ignored, (and people wonder why we charge so darn much just for a basic head overhaul?). It takes time which cost substantially more to “properly” set up the valve train after a valve grind and surfacing. With the typical slam bam head overhaul, the valve stem heights are usually all different, let alone near factory specs, and as such, will require different lash pads to bring the cam wiping pattern where it should be, (in the middle of the rocker), for a long lasting happy camshaft. As long as the wipe pattern is verified and the appropriate lash pads installed that produces that proper cam wipe pattern, then all should be well for 100,000+ miles, barring a soft cam core of course. Again, I’m sorry to hear of your cam failure. I hope you are able to get it back up and running soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
naviathan Posted August 8, 2007 Author Share Posted August 8, 2007 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cygnusx1 Posted August 8, 2007 Share Posted August 8, 2007 Do a brinell hardness test on it for kicks. It's ruined anyway. Or just punch it with a spring punch to see if it dents. Compare it to another cam. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
naviathan Posted August 8, 2007 Author Share Posted August 8, 2007 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TimZ Posted August 8, 2007 Share Posted August 8, 2007 The first thing that comes to mind, especially being as you have the “dual†oiling system, (internal gun drilled AND spray bar), is cam wipe pattern, i.e., wrong lash pads for that head and cam combo. Any of the things Braap mentioned could have caused this, but I have to say that a different thing came to my mind. Specifically, the "dual" oiling system. There is usually a restrictor in the bock that allows adequate oil flow for one or the other (internal or external), but not both. This is done in order to maintain pressure at the mains and not bleed it all out in the head. What can happen is if you try running the "dual" oiling setup is that the spray bar just dribbles oil out at idle and doesn't even hit the lobes, while at the same time killing pressure in the internal cam oiling system such that neither oils the cam adequately. Also, I've always be leery of removing the restrictor, as I think the "belts and suspenders" approach for "protecting" the cam can pretty easily come at the expense of the oil pressure at the mains, which is arguably a more catastrophic failure mode. For 99% of the vehicles out there, the stock cam oiling system works just fine - why mess with it? One other thing - there was a post a while back about how most modern oils are not that suitable for the kind of metal to metal contact that happens at cam lobe/rocker interface, due to reduced zinc content. There are some oils out there that still have zinc: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=108608 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
speeder Posted August 8, 2007 Share Posted August 8, 2007 Betcha if you pull those two rockers you'll see that the cam lobes were wiping off the the ends of the rockers' contact pads. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
naviathan Posted August 8, 2007 Author Share Posted August 8, 2007 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TimZ Posted August 8, 2007 Share Posted August 8, 2007 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. Wasn't trying to piss you off - you showed a wiped cam and asked how it could have happened. I just simply mentioned one thing that I had seen wipe a cam in a VERY similar fashion on my engine before. I'm not an inexperienced kid, either. I'll ask one more question, then I'm going to leave it alone. When you say you checked for oil in the head - how did you check? I can't tell for sure from the pic, but it looks like lobes 1 and 2 were okay. If you checked by looking through the filler hole, that's pretty much all you would have seen, and it looks like those two lobes were getting oil. If you look at the spray bar, those two lobes get supplied directly from the cam tower, while the lobes between the cam towers have to all share from the back tower - my experience was that at idle when the pressure was low, the lobes farthest from the tower (3, 4, 5, 6) had problems getting oil to the lobe/rocker interface and were just dribbling oil on the retaining spring area. Your cam appears to have a similar pattern of good/bad lobes. As I said at the beginning, could have been any number of things - that was simply one more thing that nobody had mentioned yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cygnusx1 Posted August 8, 2007 Share Posted August 8, 2007 No matter what happened here guys I don't think you can get that much wear in an hour or two unless the metal was soft to begin with. IMHO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
naviathan Posted August 8, 2007 Author Share Posted August 8, 2007 No matter what happened here guys I don't think you can get that much wear in an hour or two unless the metal was soft to begin with. IMHO. 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sweetleaf Posted August 8, 2007 Share Posted August 8, 2007 Still curious, did you ever check the wipe patterns when you installed the cam? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
naviathan Posted August 8, 2007 Author Share Posted August 8, 2007 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TimZ Posted August 8, 2007 Share Posted August 8, 2007 No matter what happened here guys I don't think you can get that much wear in an hour or two unless the metal was soft to begin with. IMHO. You might be surprised. The cam lobes are only surface hardened. Once that hardened layer gets worn through, the rest will happen pretty quickly. Not saying it isn't bad metallurgy, but for either a bad wipe pattern or oiling problems, two hours is plenty of time for something like this to happen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacecase70 Posted August 8, 2007 Share Posted August 8, 2007 dude I am sorry to hear your troubles and i hope it all gets resolved soon for you! best of luck to ya. you'll be on the road again soon! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aarang Posted August 8, 2007 Share Posted August 8, 2007 Sorry to hear of your cam failure. I had a Schnieder cam take a dump on me a few years back. MSA would not warranty it then, saying I installed it wrong. I checked wipe patterns, and did all the normal stuff. I ended up going the Delta Cam regrind route. Not only is it less than half the price of the Schnieder kit when you source all the parts, you are using a Nissan cam core for the regrind which we all know is tough as nails. I wish I would have never wasted my money with the Schneider. Also, I dissasembled the bottom end after the failure and just like has been mentioned, the oil pump was scored up and there was metal in the pan. I just started over with a different short block. Aaron Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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