[TedRamAirII]

Originally Posted by 78w72

x100 what hwystr455, smw, & flyingn said.

i've been saying this for like 10 years now, its not all about zddp levels & adding unknown amounts in an additive to unknown amounts in the oil is a complete waste of money. todays oils are far more advanced than the oil was when the whole ZDDP thing started about 10-15 years ago, modern additives are far better or at least equal to outdated zddp. in the 1950-60's zddp was the answer to extreme pressure cam wear back then with the technology they had at the time, but as with anything technology advances & usually for the better.

hopefully this thread & a couple other recent oil related ones will help people to stop drinking the zddp kool-aid.

Yeah, and GM has no lifter problems, even with their special dexos motor oil. TIC
; (

[dataway]

Years ago when mobil 1 came out my father built this testing rig in his shop. A drill press with a weight on the arm, some identical pieces of steel ... oiled up the parts, turned the drill press on, hung the weight ..... timed how long it took to start galling and smoking. I think he used standard Havoline at the time. Forgot the specific results ...but he said he got tired of waiting for the Mobil 1 to fail and stopped the test. Not very scientific, but made a believer out of him

Still .... the information I'd like to take away from this whole thread is ....

Is there any aftermarket cam company in this country selling US sourced cam cores, lifters etc. ? With all the talk of the inferior foreign stuff failing ...seems like there would be a pretty big niche market for all US made stuff .... so is there such a product?
JohnnyB

[PDC]

So, is the general consensus among the experienced engine builders here to skip the Brad Penn, Joe Gibbs, Comp Cams (etc) ZDDP oils and start using something like the Quaker State Ultimate / Pennzoil Ultra / Mobile 1 ... even on a FT cammed motor?

[lust4speed]

Originally Posted by dataway

Did a search on "US made camshaft cores" not much definitive information comes up. However several companies claim that they will make profiles in tool steel etc. Wouldn't a tool steel, or any steel camshaft preclude the issue of a bad cast core? I'd assume the "billet" cams are machined down from high quality cylindrical steel rounds.

Tool steel cams are used with roller setups. There, the hard steel cam surface provides a great surface for the hardened steel roller to roll on. The problem with the scraping action of the flat tappet cam is that similar metals want to attract to each other and you cannot have the same material for the cam because they start transferring material back and forth. So a cast iron cam has to be used with the hard steel flat tappets, and they don't have the metal transfer problem. (This is in layman's terms, and engineering types are welcome to clean the above up.)

Tim Corcoran: It's not just the cam cores, the Chinese lifters play a role in cam lobe failures. The after market starting having flat tappet lifters made off shore around the same time that they started reducing ZDDP levels in the oil. So an inferior lifter made with inferior steel and/or improper heat treat and/or inferior machining on the lifter face can and will lead to a cam lobe failure. Because if the lifter goes so does the cam and vice versa.

I agree. At the height of the failure problem several years ago, we had a cam start making noise during break-in. This was with the full assortment of ZDDP additive and all the precautions, and we tore the engine down with only 15 minutes run time, and the cam still was in fair shape, but several white-box lifters had massive wear. Wish we still had the lifters but the evidence went back to Summit for warranty replacement. Long story short, we spent way too much time cleaning and reassembling the engine with a Crower cam and Rhoads lifters with nothing else changed. Car has over 23,000 miles on it many years later and everything is fine. Only way a lifter could have been eaten away so quickly was inferior manufacturing.

[SMW]

A problem with the Penn grade (Pennzoil, Quaker State) base stock a few years back was it had high levels of paraffin which would cause sludge, so shorter oil change intervals were necessary. The additives today pretty much have that taken care of. As long as you use oil that has the SAE starburst on the bottle and it and it is the right viscosity you can't go wrong.

[Tim Corcoran]

I don't know about the cam cores but Hy-Lift Johnson makes high quality made in the USA flat tappet lifters for Pontiac in four different varieties, hyd factory replacement and hyd performance, solid lifters with and without .015 EDM oiling hole.

Johnson Lifter, which is a different company makes hyd roller lifters made in the USA for Pontiac in three different varieties.

Sorry if this is off topic but the subject came up.

[dataway]

Just added those two companies to my favorites
Thanks.

[Overkillphil]

Wasn't there also some issue with the FT Johnson factory burning down or something and causing a vacuum on quality lifters at the time?

[jm455ho]

Being using Brad Penn oil with Oil Extrême additive since 2005/2006. Guess I lucked out on the right combination.