IF ANY of you want to know, or care, never buy a cam from TPIS....

in '97 I purchased a then hot number called a ZZ9 cam and the car has run rugged for a long time, has a total of maybe 60 thousand miles on the engine .....but I tired of the rugged idle and high idle speeds.....

put in a stock L98 cam, and when removing that thing I was shocked, the cam lobes were worn down really bad, about 6 of them were almost wiped on the lobes, and all of them showed strange pin ***** type 'stresses' on the finish.....

the stock factory '89 roller lifters were perfect the rollers fine and smooth, spun like new......still working fine with the 'new cam'.....

and so I call TPIS wondering WTF?? they say send in the cam, and they maybe replace it or give me a break on another cam....friendly tone so WTF, I spend 15 bux to send it in.....


Today, the guy was rather UNFRIENDLY, calls me back and says after 14 years they not going to do a thing....never asks about anything, says the oil was not changed....I say it WAS, I have owned this car since '95 and put this new engine in it in late '97.....

maybe 60k miles and I have NEVER seen or heard of any roller cam ever breaking down over that amount of miles.....with the finish all degraded and peeling off.....

so my rough idle is now smooth, and happy for a change....

Of course I had NO idea the cam had actually failed....

but the company is really guilty of **** poor PR's at best....sure business is bad now, but a polite refusal at first call 2 weeks ago would have been fine.....even with the miles driven, I guess....
begrudgingly but now that I sent it in and get a flat out gruff type FU
for a response....just why did I spend 15 bux to send that POS back to them???

IMO, ZZ9 cam had a defective factory finish from the beginning....

anyone else have any troubles with ROLLER cams like that???

I not seen one....

 

Unless you pay extra for a billet steel cam core, unfortunately sometimes cast iron cores can have tracking problems and other problems which can lead to pitting. I don't see it happen alot, but it can happen. I had a Crane hyd roller cam have tracking problems, I sent it back to Crane. They did a Rockwell hardness test, and they said it was good. They never could explain what caused the problem, but they asked me if I used synthetic oil in it, which I did. I never got any sort of a explanation or a credit back from them.

Factory cores are billet steel.

 

IIRC, TPIS sells billet cams as a default. They are at least $50 more than a comparable cam and was led (by TPIS) to believe the extra expense was for making a billet cam. If not, they did say their cams were "better than everyone else's" which warranted the higher price.

Believe that?

Maybe it was different in '97?

I agree it sucks that they would ask to see it and refuse compensation for the age. Guess the b-head had his head up the wazzoo when you mentioned the age. Or, he just wanted to get it in his hands to prevent pictures?

Either way, I agree with your frustration over their handling of the issue. And, will throw in the higher price to support why they have extra reason to stand behind their product.

 

keep your GM car all GM. Chevy sells many different hydraulic roller cams...one is sure meet your needs. JMO

 

I've been running the ZZ9 roller cam for several years with no problems.....a little small for my application but performs very well.....don't have a real idle issue at all.....a little lumpity but sounds great with great mid-range power up to roughly 6,000 RPM....

Only problem I ran into was it ate my stock distributor gear after a few thousand miles......they forgot to tell me the stock distributor gear would need to be upgraded.....thank God it did not grenade my new engine build at the time......anyway

been running the cam since 2004 (maybe they changed by then) with no issues other than that.....I changed the lifters of course too since I had to go with retro fit rollers with the engine build

 

Noone on the planet will warranty a 14 yr old performance cam are you crazy?



You want OEM reliability leave it stock

 

I think his gripe was them asking for the cam to be shipped and inspected BEFORE they said no way we're warranting a 14yr-old cam.

It might also go to their claim of selling billet cams? Is it possible they aren't?

 

fwiw, damage like this was probably caused by lack of good valve control. lifter rollers jumping off, then back on the lobes.

that wouldn't go back on the manufacturer.

To avoid this annual (or at lease bi-annual) checks of spring tension are in order.