Bob:

I made a typo and corrected that prior to your post.
The total voters were indeed 40.
11 out or 40 voters either had problems or would not recommend. I did not set the poll up. I realize this is probably significanlty higher than what you thought, but the votes are in. Some people had failures thinking they did something wrong. Had that person installed another model cam, it may have been successful. I am not going to determine that. It failed and it was an XE cam, bottom line.
If you think that the results disprove what you thought, then start another poll of other cams and lets see where that goes. If 1 out of 3 are not happy or they failed, then so be it. If 1 out of 5, then so be it. Right now the current poll shows the people are not very satisfied with XE cam. Many people, including you, seem (so far) have had good luck with that model cam.

 

how do you explain that 35 of the 40 votes indicate satisfaction? it is not consistent with your statement...you need to redo your math considering the effect of multiple votes.
the Poll setup does have limitations that we need to deal with....you are free to draw any conclusion you want from the data....only two of the votes cast indicated that people thought there problem was due to design errors. the rest were self inflicted wounds.

 

Bob:

It's your poll. Look at it before replying.
I didn't make anything up. 11 out of 40 voters either had problems or would not recommend buying another. That's not votes, its voters.
Don't balme me for the results.

 

we must be seeing a different chart, countup the results and you will see that 71 "votes" were cast...look at the bottom and you will see that 40 people voted....you need to think about the effect of multiple votes on your results......you can get in the voting booth only once, but you have the ability to make multiple choices.

 

Glad you agree with my previous post. I said 40 voters. Let me repeat it so you understand, "I said 40 voters". Did you read it, or should I type it again.
Come up with some reason to explain why 11 out of 40 voters had problems or would not recommend a Comp Cam or get over it. You were the one so hell bent on showing that people were happy and didn't have any problems, that you had to create a poll. I said early on that there would be a high failure rate. Not just because the cam may have issues but partly becuase of the group of people who are installing them (some have never installed a cam before).

 

you are free to draw any conclusion you want.....if we can't even agree that your "11 votes" are out of a total of 71 votes cast by 40 people then any more discussion on this is a waste of time....people can draw different conclusions from data and they do this all the time...but not even to be able to agree about the total popluation of votes cast is just crazy.

 

I was counting voters. Stop trying to mix voters with the number of votes. 19 out of 71 votes were: unsatisified, problems, or would not recommend. 11 out of 40 voters had problems or would not recommend.

 

ok we are getting some where...we agree on 40 voters....total votes cast of 71.

so how are you determing that your 11 votes are "voters" instead of votes cast?

 

XE-256 in a vortec 350. Never had a small block with that broad a torque band. With 3.08s I start out in second gear (3.42 low ST-10) about half the time.

 

ok i knew we were evaluating different information, just took me a while to figure out where it was.....so i started clicking in the POLL and came up with what you were seeing, ( if you click in the underlined number category it shows the voting results since it was a public POLL).....yes you are right there are 11 different voters who voted in the dissatisfied areas(if you include would not use again), interestingly three of those also posted a favorable vote, these are people who have had positive and negative experiences with the cam....anyway i do see where you are getting your information and i apologize for "not getting it earlier" (11 incidentally also happens to be the number of votes cast in those areas and thats where i mistakenly thought your information was coming from ).

so based on the 42 people voting this is what i see:

33 voters were satisfied users, some had these cams in both BBC and SBC.
3 voters had problems, this is understated because some people did not know they could cast multiple votes and really we should include in with this the "attributed problems to" areas. so this should really be modified to show 9 voters had problems.

if we add to these numbers the 2 additional voters who only cast votes in "would not use again" it increases this the number to 11, if we do that we need to also add the 4 additional voters who voted that they "would use another" also to the 33 voters making it 37.

Now we have a problem because we have 37 + 11= 48 total votes when only 42 people voted....this is due to people having used several Cams and multiple voting.... i think for any % to be meaning full we need to add up (without double counting in the same category) all favorable votes plus all unfavorable votes accepting that a voter
may have had several different experiences with different cams.

so this is how i see it.
37/48 favorable
11/48 unfavorable (not a particularly favorable ratio )
what is interesting to me is within this group the voters thought installation and break in issues were the areas attributed to there problem

 

I have the XE-274 and love it, 1500 miles no problem, haven't touched adjustment since breakin.. wouldn't consider another cam.. pulls real hard, no problems what so ever..

 

using the same logic as previously described,

morning results.....4 additional voters

41/52 favorable
11/52 unfavorable


I started this POLL to gather facts, i had no intentions or predispositions other then that,i had been reading in posts that people were talking about XE series problems, and the only thing that was absent from those posts were the people who actually suffered the problems. Anectodal and third hand stories are less then accurate. thats why i created the POLL.

Mandm1200 has a well thought and argued case for these failures, and he has spent a bunch of time and effort explaining his views. His arguement does fall in line with the set of facts this POLL has developed. Mike please add to/correct this if i missstated your position.

I learned a long time ago that any reasonable and plausible explanation that coincides with the facts and that cannot be easily disputed could be as accurate as the next guys. I still do not beleive there is a design failure in these cams, however there is certainly a problem in getting these cams installed properly by us....you guys who had the failures are closest to the problem and are pointing to installation and break in problems as the main culprit.....perhaps we are pushing the envelope in trying to develop more HP and the CAM is the weakest link in our set ups. whatever the case this POLL as a Public Poll has good degree of validation and i have no reason to think the people who voted did so with any thing less then in wanting to openly share information. So keep adding to the POLL the more people who vote the better the information will become. Any one is welcome to draw conclusions from this data.

 

morning results.....1 additional voter

41/53 favorable
12/53 unfavorable

I will keep this going until we hit 100 voters or until the Poll is 1 week old. if you have not voted pls do, it will make the results better.

 

morning results.....
5 additional voters, with 3 favorable and 3 "unfavorable" votes cast. heres the breakdown:

44/59 favorable (74.5%)
15/59 unfavorable (25.4%) and of these:
0/15 attributed problem to quality control issues
6/15 ( 40%)attributed problem to break in proceedure
2/15 (13.3%)attributed problem to mismatched components
5/15 (33.3%)attributed problem to installation problems
2/15 (13.3%) attributed problem to poor design

I will keep this going until we hit 100 voters or until the Poll is 1 week old. if you have not voted pls do, it will make the results better.

 

I get my cams custom made and dont really know if i like comp cams or not.

 

are you using an XE series cam now?

 

I have no clue it could be it was in the car when i got it. it was like .440 lift now its .550 with 280 duration.

 

This is kind of interesting and on the same topic...Different manufacturer however......check out these installation instructions from Lunati on there #60103 Voodoo cam, i beleive these are there version of the XE series

http://www.holley.com/products.asp?product=60103

"Installation Notes
WARNING: These are the MOST AGGRESSIVE hydraulic flat tappet cams ever produced! If recommended break in procedures are not followed, these cams
WILL FAIL! See the Master Lunati catalog for spring, retainer and keeper specifications or call Lunati Tech at 901–365–0950"

and more info:
http://www.holley.com/data/Products/...al/INST150.pdf

"Without a doubt, the vast majority of all cam and lifter failures occur when the new cam and lifters are installed and the engine is fired up and run for the first time. The first 10 minutes of initial cam break-in is the most crucial! If the appropriate instructions and installation procedures aren’t followed - with the correct components - failure is likely imminent.
One of the most common problems we find with cam and lifter wear results when a new cam is installed with USED LIFTERS! Even lifters that have only a few minutes of running time on them cannot be used with another cam. NEW LIFTERS MUST ALWAYS BE USED WITH A NEW CAM due to the immediate wear pattern that begins the instant the engine is fired up and run. Although appearing to be flat across the bottom, lifters are actually convex shaped with a crown of approximately .002”. This crown shape and the taper ground into the cam’s lobes promote the lifter’s rotation while the engine is operating."

 

Ok lets wrap this up.....thanks all for voting

1 additional voter, I am making an adjustment in the unfavorable category of 2 votes for the following reasons, 1 voter who voted does not a have Comp Cam and was just voting that they would not buy one and one person who voted in the "attribute problem to break in" was attributing other peoples cam problems not thier own problem.


45/58 favorable (77.5%)
13/58 unfavorable (22.4%)
and most of those problems were attributed to installation or breakin procedure.

Any one can draw any conclusions they want from this data , but one thing I defintely see is that installation and break in proceedures are critical to these cams and if you don't have your act together in this area like Lunati says on there version of the XE series " Failure is likely imminent" or even worse "these cams will fail".

If you buy either of these cam types make sure you buy new lifters and break the Cam in properly.