anyone had a crane cam fail?

[Z2_4cams]

well a whopping 7300 km (about 4400 miles) on my rebuild and I get some bad valve train noise. pull the rear valve cover and the exhaust valve on the #1 cylinder wasn't moving much. pulled the lower, and the lifter didn't wanna come out of the bore easily. upon inspection the bottom was concave, so turned the motor and sure enough the lobe was fucked too.pulled out another lifter and it slid nicely into the #1 exhaust bore just fine. tried putting the original lifter back in, no go. is this most likely a defective lifter or what? anyone else had probs like this?

[Guest]

You know I'm running teh same cam, with over 20000 K on it....

Did you do what I said to break it in?

If so, what did I say?

[geoffinbc]

What did he say, what did he say ???

[Z2_4cams]

ya I started it up and drove right ot the track liek you said Chris.

[614streets]

uh oh the s-series guys are ganging up on ya.

[geoffinbc]

LOL yea dont mess with us. We like taking F-Body engines

[Guest]

LOL yea dont mess with us. We like taking F-Body engines

Speek fer yerself, I ain't got no stinkin' F-bodee engeen in muh truck.

Anyway, Your breakin technique, although not like mine, is what some other people do, with mixed results, as you can see, you did vary the RPM though, so that's good.

Hmm, Yours was the GMP equivilant too, correct?

[geoffinbc]

LOL yea I guess you dont. Ohwell...

Anyway about the cam. To have a lifter go on one lobe and the rest be fine would probabally suggest a bad lifter. If all the other show good break in then what can you say?

Just see what can be done to remedy it. I know you have a new one on order. So see if you can get some credit for the bad one.

[TurboGTU]

Did you lube all lifters and lobes...when you finished assembling the engine...did you prime it with a priming tool or a drill till you got pressure?. If not...the lifter can stall and won't spin..causing a flat lobe and bad lifter. The oil lifter gallerie on theise engines can starve servly on breakin. I have also installed a Crane cam. I didn't have a single problem. Just regular cheap oil for the breakin and then synthetic.

[Z2_4cams]

^exactly what I did. then the brreak in was 20 min @ 2000 rpm. then an hour of varying rpms. then 500 km of various rpm driving.

[TheProfessor]

yeah thats the proper break in
i had a crane 260 fail but that had aomething to do with the bearings getting wiped out

[Guest]

LOL, I prefer my method ( I know other engine builders I have talked to as well agree).

Initial break in is vary RPM between 2000 and 4000 RPM for a street engine, basically rev it let it come back down a bit rev it let it come back, etc, I would hold it at certain RPMs for a second or two, did this for the first 20 minutes. Changed oil, then set idle (to drive it). Drove it around, and yes contrary to popular belivef I stood on it, and brought the RPM up to beyond 5000 RPM in the first 5 minutes of driving. I always break in the way I'm going to drive it, if you're planning on driving it hard, break it hard, if you plan to baby it, do an easy break in.

[TurboGTU]

Im suprised it wasn't the number 10 exhaust lobe....way at the back. That seems to be the lobe that fails most if not all of the time on these engines (oil starved). Well seems like our little v6 doen't like exhaust lobes..LOL. Well...I can only think if the initial brakein...I mean..you went 4400 miles on the cam..a bad lifter/wrong lifter or high tention springs...or even a stalling valve can show their ugly face in a hurry.

[Z2_4cams]

the lifter is actually warped. it won't slide in any of the bores. the other lifters had no problem sliding in the bore