Hi all,

I'm from Germany and needed the advice of the experts.

I have a 1972 C3, 454cui, no tuning, MN engine,
The engine was completely rebuilt before 4000mls.
After a short time the second camshaft is already broken, this time 2 cams and lifters are damaged,
I am looking for a good solution for replacement with roller lifters.
I just want to renew the camshaft and the lifters because everything else is already new.
Which parts of which suppliers could you recommend in a reasonable quality for this engine?

Thanks and Greetings
Udo

 

Udo, greetings. If you have gone through 2 cams that engine really should come out and at minimum have all the oil plugs pulled and flush and scrub the gallies. Otherwise you will be installing 4 cams.

 

pull eng,,tear down to bare block,clean every oil and water passage,clean and inspect/clean every part,figure out why you wrecked 2 cams,,

are the lifter bores screwed-up?
are the cam bearings in correct?
are the lifters getting oil?

 

What do you mean by broken?

Did the cam actually snap in two, or the lobes went flat?

What brand/types of cams are failing?

 

if i read this correctly?
you have had 2 cams lose lobes and go flat?
did you decide why the first one went out and make corrections?
2 basic reasons are either;
did not break in cam with zddp at high rpms, 2k+ for 30 mins
excessive valve spring pressure and european oil without zddp
and or wrong weight oil.

until you figure out what the reason is, i would not go any further.

as far as retro fit roller lifters, sounds like a good idea.
don't cheap out on them.
some cheap ones have been known to lose the roller bearings in them and trash an engine.

as the guys said, the metal from the worn cam will
cause wear on parts crucial to engine life.
like crank/rod bearings.

good luck

 

I bought my car as a not running project. My 454 had three adjacent lobes wiped near the rear of the engine. The machinist/engine builder told me this is not uncommon with 454s and may have been due to misaligned bores from the factory. To fix the bores was going to cost about $500. I felt it was a better deal to install a roller which was more forgiving with respect to the alignment issues.

I stuck with the major cam manufactures when I was looking. These were Crane, Lunati, Comp and Howard. I went with a lunati 20110711 LK cam kit. I looked at about a dozen cams with specs above and below the lunati I chose. Should have a lot of low end but will run out at about 5800 RPM. Remember that you have to change the fuel pump rod and the distributor gear when going to a roller. Also, you will need a way to control end play. I went with a Cloyes timing cover with a thrust button. My block does have two drilled and tapped holes up at the first cam bearing. It is a 1973 numbers matching block. I don't know if these can be used to restrain the cam.
You will have to know what your engine has internally and how you want to drive the car. The Lunati cam has a fair amount of lift and the valve springs you have may not work so you may want to choose a cam with lesser lift. I believe I was stuck with beehives or dual springs. I went with duals for reliability and redundancy. Beehives are more performance oriented.

The computer I have some calculations on is down but when I get it back, I'll put a PDF together of what the specs are for the cams I looked at and what the DCR is for the cams I looked at with my 9.5 compression ratio.

 

We are constantly doing builds for the 100% stock-appearing guys and MUST keep the correct look at all times.

When stepping up to the retro-hyd-roller platform on the BBC's we now use Comp Cams just about all the time. We use the later style MK-VI stepped-nose cams along with the matching Torrington style timing chain setup. This allows the use of a thrust plate to control cam end-play. Absolutely no more cam buttons OR messing around with cam button shimming (chasing cam end-play). Bolt the thrust plate in place and end-play is fixed.

This entire setup along with the cast-core cams also allows the use of the OEM fuel pump pushrods AND the OEM distributor gears.

Thanks, Gary in N.Y.

P.S. We now do the original early SBC's the same way, using the later style cams with a thrust plate also. We devised the necessary tooling to modify the early blocks for the plates and actually began selling it as a package a while back now, makes our life and doing roller-cammed ***'y's a "walk-in-the-park" now so to speak!

 

[QUOTE=GOSFAST;1597191986]We are constantly doing builds for the 100% stock-appearing guys and MUST keep the correct look at all times.

When stepping up to the retro-hyd-roller platform on the BBC's we now use Comp Cams just about all the time. We use the later style MK-VI stepped-nose cams along with the matching Torrington style timing chain setup. This allows the use of a thrust plate to control cam end-play.
Are the two threaded holes at the front camshaft bearing for the retainer or do you have to add others?

Also, do you use roller rocker arms and if so, how do you keep the valve covers looking stock?

 

We keep all the parts on hand for these builds, thrust plates, bolts, Torrington tru-roller MK-VI timing sets, etc. We also keep an assortment of retro-hyd-roller cams on the shelf (again, mostly Comp's) and either their lifters or the Morels.

Thanks, Gary in N.Y.

P.S. Here's two shots of a finished 100% stock-appearing build for a Chevelle ready to go, it is fully rollered and has the stock (thin) V/C gaskets.

 

Why has no one mentioned that his valve spring will have to be changed out? Also the pushrods are shorter.....you will have to run a button unless you tear the whole thing apart to be machined for a cam plate.
I also recommend pulling the pan and getting the shavings out.
You probably will not see much cam material in the block oil passages if running a good oil filter.

Jebby