The cam in my 66, 427 / 425 hp has wiped a lobe.
The car has been finished for 16 years. I was unaware of the zinc removal issue for some time after the rebuild.
Need some help deciding on a replacement cam. Roller or stock replacement with the proper oil. I here roller solid cams have lifter issued. Tough to tell fact from fiction.
Any help would be apperciated.

 

Assuming a stock car with stock exhaust stick with a stock cam from sealed power or crane cams blueprint replacement

 

I have an engine that has the same factory installed cam in it since 1969. Runs on Rotella. What's up with yours?

You want to run a roller. Congrats to you. You'll spend a bunch of money.

 

Here read some of these threads first. It might save you some time.

Cliff Notes: Some people like the flat tappet, and some people realize the positives going to a roller. Then there are others who are too cheap to buy a roller and or understand that cam lobe designs have made leaps and bounds since the 60's. From reading the posts below you can figure it out for yourself.

I personally have a Hyd roller in the 496 BBC that is in the 66 with a Howards cam and short travel Morel hyd roller lifters and Comp Ultra Pro rocker arms that all fit under the stamp steel valve covers.

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c1-a...7-l88-cam.html

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c1-a...vs-roller.html

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c1-a...mendation.html

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c1-a...-cam-lobe.html

 

If there are only these two categories of people that shop for a new camshaft, you have certainly narrowed the field down to just a few customers.

I don't know all those that shop for camshafts but I do know there are more reasons for what kind of camshaft system is purchased including:

Cost, durability, intended use of the vehicle and last but not least, compatibility with the other OEM components on the vehicle.

For example, it would appear from the OP's simple inquiry, he has had a part failure and wants to replace it with something that is durable. He also mentioned oil/lubrication.

Until more is known about what is truly needed to satisfy the OP's functional expectations and pocketbook, I don't know how an intelligent recommendation could be made.

It's probably a safe bet that 90% of the camshaft failures owner's report that they are aftermarket performance camshafts with stiff valve springs. That's not the case with OEM performance parts as a rule. They don't need the stiff springs and therefore are less prone to wear/breakage failures such as worn rocker arms, pulled rocker studs, bent/broken pushrods and cam/lobe interface wear. The trade off here is some loss of performance but if you have a SHP 427 and you drive it on the street, how much performance over and above the OEM stock engine can you use?

You have referred to me in the past as not having a clue and living in the dark ages. I have several clues. I was messing with roller camshafts in 1965. I don't know what you were doing then?

 

Howard's retrofit roller cams and lifters can be bought for right around 600.00 and they don't need a special gear for the distributor.

Nothing wrong with a flat tappet, but i prefer rollers.

 

I have been running the solid L88 cam in my BB since the 80's and to date have never had one issue. And the same for my stout valve springs.

IMO from a reliability and dependability standpoint the solid lifter camshaft is the way to go. I run full roller rockers and poly locks and the valves stay in adjustment. Set em and forget em.

The sound of the motor with this cam is incredible. Takes me back to the "old days" when muscle cars ruled!

 

That's another good point. Something that means something to some of us. I've never heard a high performance roller cam sound like the good old days.

That's not to say some don't.

 

read this before ordering any cam

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/1571829772-post61.html

 

Excellent point. Make sure you request for the cam company to grind the oil groove in the back of the cam. They usually charge around 45.00 extra

 

The sound of this cam is awesome, and those solid lifters "sing" to me as well.

I have friends with BB's with roller cams and somehow it just isn't the same. (some actually sound more like motor boats)

So for old school sound and muscle, and reliability IMO, the solids are they way to go!

The choice is yours............

 

Howards hydraulic roller cam sans motor boat sound

225/235 duration .591/.601 lift on a 112 lobe separation.

 

No where near the L88 duration spec or sound - pretty tame I'd say thru the factory side pipes. Headers make a big difference as well in sound and overall performance.

 

That's right, it has more lift, reasonable duration, its a hydraulic roller, and 10.2:1 compression, so it will run on pump gas. It pulls through the entire RPM range to 6200 without slacking up. Even with the stock 390hp cast iron intake and oval port heads, id put this 66 up against an original spec 425hp in the 1/4 mile any day of the week. rpm was around 850 in the video. i can tone it down to 650 and make it shake all over the place without it stalling and i dont have to worry about oil flow to the lobes.

 

I have seen a stock L-72 run the quarter, post a time slip and we'll compare

 

It's not stock, that's the point. The engine was lame before the upgrades and any small block would have put up a good run against it, probably outrun it without much trouble, actually. Porting the heads, upgrading the pistons, and changing the cam really woke the engine up.

 

Just changing the cam alone (to stock 427/425) in those oval port BB's woke them up really well for street use.

 

I forgot we put larger valves in the heads as well.

Anyway, we are very fortunate to have such a large variety of cams to choose from, flat tappet or roller. I wiped a lobe on a 427 flat tappet lunati cam 5 years ago. From what i remember, some of the cam manufacturers were getting bad cores from China in the 04-08 range, or was it bad lifters? Whether that is factual or not, i dont know, but it seems that the majority of threads about wiping cam lobes happened in that time range and/or cams that fail are from that time range.

 

What I meant was the L88 cam has a much more "radical" idle sound in the exhausts as compared to yours. Your duration (and let's not forget) Overlap is mild in comparison.

And as far as losing lobes goes, I installed my solid lifter L88 cam 3+ decades ago and to date have never had one issue. Its still in there and is perfect.
So if one knows what they are doing regarding lubrication and care of a radical flat tappet cam in a BB, there are no major reasons to go with a roller.

Besides that - I have read and also seen many a horror story about the roller lifters "grenading" inside the motor and then its over! Especially in the BB's since the lifters bores are splayed at different angles. There are zillions of posts on roller lifter failures in BB's.

Again, The Choice Is Yours.......

 

Sorry to break it to you the L88 cam is not a radical camshaft. The opening and closing ramps are very slow compared to newer camshafts thus allowing the use of lighter valve springs which in turn puts less stress on the camshaft itself. Do a little research and look at the old Chiltons manuals what the specs are on the valve springs that were used back then. They are in the 80-100 lb range at the installed height. Heck the 69 427 430 hp motor has only 116 lbs of spring pressure on the factory dual springs.

Go look this stuff up for yourself I have the books. Then look at the spring specs on a new style say Comp Extreme Energy cam you will find even the shorter 230-240 at .050 cams require a spring of at least 120 lbs at the seat due to the faster ramps.

Just because a camshaft is has a large duration doesn't make it a radical camshaft, it just makes it big.

Camshaft talk is fine for the car shows Hey I have an L88 cam blah, blah BS stuff. Which is fine for some people but not for the true performance minded people who want to extract the most amount of performance out of a particular combination. No wonder I haven't been to a car show in over 10 years.

And what camshaft sounds better that is as subjective as who makes the best toilet paper.

So where did the OP go?