[Steve C.]

Jay,
I never paid much attention to it until many years ago the subject cam up regarding a Comp Cams solid roller.
I had used two solid rollers from Comp at the time. Up until then most were from UltraDyne direct and then after those two from Comp Cams then UltraDyne lobes from Bullet.

"Copper coating between the lobes prevents the flame hardening from making the cam brittle."

https://www.hotrod.com/features/tech...982-1559-148-1


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[Steve C.]

Why Copper Coating is Used

Preventing Embrittlement: While the cam lobes need to be extremely hard to resist wear, the core (shaft) must remain ductile to withstand the immense torsional stress and high spring pressures in the valvetrain. If the whole shaft were hardened, it would likely snap under load.

Comp Cams Camshaft Heat Treatment Explained
https://performancewholesale.com.au/...ment-explained


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[scott70]

At bullet Mark went and asked what the material would be. They weren’t exactly sure they said it’s either the 1055 or 5150. Said it was most likely the 1055.

[Jay S]

Originally Posted by scott70

At bullet Mark went and asked what the material would be. They weren’t exactly sure they said it’s either the 1055 or 5150. Said it was most likely the 1055.

On 1055 cores I usually use the factory distributer gear. We check it at about a 1000 miles for wear and end up just putting it back in. Most aftermarket distributer’s come with some type of a melonized gear, they work fine on the 1055s too. I like the HR cams ground on 1055s when limited on distributer gear options.

Since you don’t know for sure, you would find out soon enough if it is a 5150 core, it requires at least melonized gear, it will quickly eat the stock factory distributer gear. You would want to check distributer gear much sooner for wear. Persoanlly I would break a 5150 in with a stock gear then switch to a BOP if it shows any wear. Make sure they install the orificed galley plug to lubricate the gear.

The other cores like the 5160, 8660 and 8620 all require bronze or a composite to last any time at all on the street. The BOP gear works for all of the above, so will most bronze gears. Generally I break the cam in with bronze then switch to the BOP composite on all but the 1055 and the 5150. Many start out with the BOP and don’t do anything for breaking the gear in. I am guessing that is your plan. That works fine of the majority of the time, but I don’t generally run the BOP at first..

[scott70]

I did drop off the bop poly gear at the engine shop. The dist I’ve been using is a msd ready to run. That’s at the engine shop too.