Jer82Z28

Some of you might have remember my problems with my XE274H cam I bought. It looked like a lifter failure however when i pulled the cam i could see one lobe failed back and cause the cam to walk ahead resulting in metal everywhere. I thought maybe it was something I did so I was ready to suck it up and just put the old one in. I took the engine to a machine shop to get it cleaned and checked out. I was about to give him my old XE262H cam that was previously in the motor but when we took a look, it also has 2 failing lobes! The shop i took my bottem end to wasn't very surprised to see both cams, he showed me 3 comp cams with the same problem that occured in the past month.

Comp=CRAP

ljnowell

interesting. never had that problem with a comp cam. I guess it can happen to anyone though. I have seen that before though, on other manufacturers cams.

Twilightoptics

LMGDAO Do you know how many MILLIONS of comp cams are out there and working properly?

Maybe you didn't break the cam in right or had too stiff a springs or crappy lifters etc etc etc on both cams.

if you didn't change everything for your new cam, it could have been something you had before.

Don't claim bad parts unless you can proove it. No matter what the machinist says.

Edit: I've read that alot of cam manufactures get their blanks from the same place. MOST of break in failures are from too heavy spring pressures, a bad lifter, or most commonly not enough lube. Don't use the comp red lube, use moly assembly lube.

tom3

Just reading around the internet car sites, very common to see Comp Cams problems like you've had. Almost never hear a complaint from other companies. Metalurgy has to be exact in the iron to steel contact area on the camshaft, I'd guess they don't have the quality control to maintain this. Also Comp does have some very high stress cam designs, high lift with low duration, makes for a steep ramp and low radius lobe.

Jer82Z28

exactly, now try to keep tabs on quality control with millions of cams going out the door.

at first i could understand maybe a bad batch of cams coming out, perhaps they screwed up on their hardening process for a few thousand cams or something. however the 262 i put in is 2 years old! they've been making ****ty cams for 2 years. Is it just my bad luck? maybe.
Don't insult my mechanicing abilities in favour of your manufacturer loyalty though. I've swapped a fair amount of cams in the past. I have 6 used camshafts chillin in my shed from working on friends vehicles.
of the 3 comp cams I've used 2 of them have failed.
My machinist deals with that stuff for a living as well. I'm sure his opinion is quite educated when it comes to equipment quality and which manufacturer he recommends.

I was comp cams biggest fan, I have all comp valvetrain on my 82 now, I have their cams catalog memorized, but I would be stupid to buy another broken stick from them.

ericmac450

I have quite a few friends who work at Comp Cams and I have never heard of any problems from them. I am sure if you called them and explained the situation they could work something out with you.

Even though they do make millions of cams they are still VERY well tested and checked.

You can contact them here - CAM HELP: 1-800-999-0853

89gta383

iTrader: (5)

I've gotten 2 crappy ones from them, one of them is the hydraulic roller I just pulled out of my motor after 5000 miles.

Jer82Z28

I called them. they were actually kinda rude,
told me to send it to their warrenty dept and hung up on me before I could finish my story lol

I have my cam being sent to their warrentee dept atm. But im still screwed with my 2 year old cam :/

Stekman

I've seen a Comp get screwed up once. half of the problem was use error, though. However, just because one issue like this happens, doesn't mean I am not going to stop recommending their grinds to people.

I prefer Isky myself, though.

89Warbird

It's possible to get a bad cam from anyone. I've broken a cam completely into two pieces. If only I had a picture of the look on my face when I pulled the cam out and only got one bearing journal and two lobes. I've also pulled them out with a cam lobe perfectly round and smooth, shiny, looks just like cam bearing journal instead of a cam lobe. I am disappointed to hear Comp Cams is having quality control problems and that their Customer Service is bad, but I have to believe it was a problem with lubrication in your case. Two flat tappet cams, two similar failure mechanisms, either spring pressure is way too high, coil bind maybe, or you have a lubrication issue, either on installation and startup or during operation.

EvilCartman

iTrader: (1)

Both comp cams I've had have been fine

DFI79MC

iTrader: (1)

Hmm, funny timing for this post. This is about a month old drama for me.

So yah, this year I have my new custom ground Comp solid roller paired up with my new AFR 195s. The object of the cam/head swap was to pick up some power and torque.

Needless to say, I could tell something was wrong when I was down over 30 RWHP, and 3 tenths in the 1/4 mile from last year. Fuel pressure was funny too, so figuring my pump was weak, I got a new racing pump, fuel log, fuel lines etc. That seemed to solve that.

I decided to pull the heads off to get them flowed, because I couldnt figure out where else a problem could be. When I got the heads off, I noticed some odd looking scuffing on the cylinder walls considering the motor had a little over 300 miles on it.

I pulled the short block out and took it to my builder for him to look at. The next day I got *the* phone call..... Jeremy, we have a problem....





Rockwell C hardness of 20. Needless to say, my crank is all scratched up, the pistons are scratched up, the block is scratched up, bearing are junk, oil pump is junk, yadda yadda.

I bought this complete Comp Hi-Tech matching valvetrain directly through Comp, so they know I didnt use any junk to cause this.

In the end they offered to replace the cam and rebuild the lifters. They offered no explanation for the failure, and didnt try to blame me at all (that tells me they are taking the blame completely right?)

I declined the offer, with the damage done to the short block the cost of replacing a cam is irellevent IMO.

Now, I can understand cam companies need strict rules about replacing parts because of the mass quantity of flat tappet cams that get wiped out everyday from things beyond their control (burrs in the lifter bores, improperly set preload or lash, too much spring pressure for break-in etc. etc.). However, when a true quality problem arises, they should be willing to step forward and *at least* help with the damage done.

It was also mentioned that there should have been some form of warning before all the parts got damaged.

http://inet5.cmsinter.net/daryl/videos/jlp/

Other than the fact its slower and less powerful than last year, do any of you notice anything funny?

I didnt even want parts replaced, just repaired enough to get the motor back together. They didnt even acknowledge my request enough to say no.

I'm not whining, and I have no brand preference, so I'll just take my business elsewhere, its no big deal. Harold at Lunati will most likely be getting my business from now on.

91formulaSS

FYI. I read that Lunatti and Comp cams come from the same place.

Dzhezkov

iTrader: (1)

The folks at Isky are a good bunch, and I'll buy cams from them exclusively.

tom3

http://inet5.cmsinter.net/daryl/videos/jlp/


That MonteCarlo really run 12.4 with a TPI? Sure hooks up good - and sounds awesome, bad cam or not.

89Warbird

I do have to wonder about using a cast cam for a roller cam application. Mine is fine and no problems that I know of. But if this is a big problem then I think we should all stay away from cast cams and only get billet for rollers.

DFI79MC

iTrader: (1)

Prolly right, but the people selling it to me are not even comparable.

Nah, it was TPI'ed a few moons ago, now it carries the trademark 750/Air Gap.

Words of wisdom, and a lesson learned for me!

B4Ctom1

operator/ break in error accounts for 99.999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% of all failures, I find it hard to believe that they are screwing you. besides they want those bad cams back and summit will allow you to exchange alot of the time even if it was bought a while back.

DFI79MC

iTrader: (1)

For flat tappets, I agree. Humor me as well, how do you break in a roller tappet cam?

I apologize if you arent referring to me, but if you are, I never said I was getting screwed. I'm not happy with Comp because I have a damaged shortblock because of a soft cam. Replacing the cam doesnt help the shortblock.

They have the cam back.


It was ordered directly through Comp.

B4Ctom1

mind telling me what springs you used?

DFI79MC

iTrader: (1)

Comp 954s installed at the *decided* specs.

Momar

I had a xe264 fail a while back. It is quite interesting. It wasnt just one or 2 lobes either. It was several. I will admit, that this was only like my second cam swap, but I did everything as instructed. It was well lubed, had the proper parts(springs/lifters) and I broke it in per comps instructions. I cant say for sure that it wasnt my fault, but I find it kind of odd that I have heard so much about these problems w/ their cams. I had been previously set on only using their valve train components, but now that idea is kind of changing. Oh, and I have done several cam swaps since then and not had a problem. One was even just a cheap summit cam and it has held up fine. I didnt even contact comp cams about it because I had the cam for a few months before installed, and by the time I figured out what was causing my problems with the motor(the cam) it had been over a year since I had bought the cam. I just figure I will get something else next time, and just deal with it.

Ben

MurcoRS

This can happen with any company and any product. Our collective goal is to push the envelope of the engine and even mega-buck Nascar engines break regularly.
I recently got 3 of Edelbrock's brand-new roller-retro-fit cams and they all had corrosion on the lobes! I contacted Edelbrock each time and was shipped another cam. On the 4th try I asked the foundry foreman to go and grab one off of the line and he discovered that the employees weren't wearing gloves to handle the freshly polished cams when packing them! They were used to parkerized cams, not polished pieces. They finally got it right for me and made ammends with some free parts!
Contain your attitude, offer them a way out of the problem, and these companies will do some really cool things for you!!

Momar

I dont think it is comp cams entire line, but from what I have read, a lot of people have been having problems with the extreem energy series. I would imagine that it has something to do with the faster ramp rates causing the lifter to dig in. This may not even be totaly a cam defect. It could even just be a problem with the fact that having the the quicker ramp rates requires better tolerences on our blocks, and a slightly off lifter bore that wouldnt cause a problem with a cam with slower ramp rates may be just enough to cause a problem with these. I dont really know whats going on, but I know that I have seen a lot of people have problems with them recently.

burnout88

This is a Comp cam problem. I know three people that all put in a comp cams (two carb cars and one tpi) and they all went flat. I think they have a pretty big quality problem. Before Comp was "popular" hearing about a cam go flat was not a very common thing.

Also, just go ask any machine shop what they really think of a Comp Cam and I am sure they will have plenty of stories to tell you.

I agree they suck.

ljnowell

Hmmm, around here the cams we cuss about are the SSI (PAW), and the crane cams. But I do think there is something about the XE line of comp cams. I have heard a lot f problems out of those. I use a Comp Magnum, it broke in well and hasnt given a problem. Thats the second magnum cam that Ihave installed (one in a buddies car). But who knows?

DIGGLER

iTrader: (1)

if you have lobes going flat on a roller, i would say its most likely a lifter or oiling problem.

seems like i remember someone having a roller lifter seize up when under load, but when out of the motor felt fine. ground down a lobe. i cant see spring pressure tearing up a roller lobe, as one of my friends ran enough spring pressure to bend his spring compressor and broke 2 rocker tips. cam was fine.

xe cams do have steeper lobes, could it be possible for some types of lifters' bodies to come into contact with a lobe? (for larger xe cams)

if it was an oiling problem i would think it would take out several lobes, and doubt it would do it at all on a roller motor, unless the lifters rollers seized. the cam lobes are oiled mostly by splashing oil from the crankshaft. so if the lobes are not being oiled well enough, neither is the rest of the engine.

someone stated the rockwell hardness of the cam at 20. what is it supposed to be? was it measured on the lobe that went bad? if so, it could have been affected by the extreme heat produced there i would imagine. i know of some aluminum heads that went soft between 2 cylinders after a blown headgasket.

Shagwell

I run a Doug Herbert billet roller. They ARE the originators of the roller cam, and they seem to make a nice cam. Mine cost me like $225, drop in for a late-model block(retaining plate). Very nice piece, I would reccomend it to anyone.

THEGENERAL

hmmm hard to believe
especially with a good name cam

Aron213

Im not even going to read most of the replys to this thread because 99% is he said she said BS.

Comp Cams will stand behind thier products. We do about 5 sbc's a week and 4 of the 5 are Comp Cam equiped. Lobes wiping off the cam can be user error almost all the time, did you break it in properly? Are you running it at proper idle RPM? Do you have the correct spring pressure? Or are you like half the Third gen owners and just throw parts at a car and see what it nets you? This is not a comp cam problem!

DFI79MC

iTrader: (1)

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Aron213



You really should, so people know who you are referring to when you type. Assuming you were referring to me, here it goes.



Yes, Comp stands behind their product when it fails, but not parts that get damaged because of their part failing.




You want a cookie?




I agree with you 110% if we were speaking flat tappet, but please do elaborate on this involving a roller cam.




Even though roller tappet cams require no break-in, I always follow the 20-25 minute high idle break-in procedure.





The motor idled around 1150 RPMs. I'd say thats plenty high enough.




I ordered and installed the Comp selected Hi-Tech springs at Comps installed height and pressure recommendation.



Yup, you got me. Heres the reciept for my slapped together valvetrain that me and my bench racer uncle dreamed up. Its even missing the 3/8 Hi-Tech pushrods and guideplates that I ordered when we measured for them after assembly. But like you said, maybe I should have just guessed the pushrod length beforehand as crappy and thrown together as my setup was.






Believe it or not, I almost agree with you. The only thing is, I would have felt a lot better had they made an effort to passify me after they found their product to be defective, but like I said above.... whatever. There is life after Comp.

Aron213

actually you should learn to read, I said replys, not the original thread...but I can see you have part of assume right, you are an ***...I will stand by my original statement that its more than likely user error.

BTW, about your wanna cookie response, like I said I can manage to get it right all week long and from the looks of it you cant get it right once.

also nowhere in your first post did it say roller cam, you use cam numbers that can go either flat tappet or roller, so try to be a little more specific in your first post

Hawk92z-TDZ

Um.. he's not the thread creator, he is one of the reply's.

DFI79MC

iTrader: (1)

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Aron213






Funny thing, as poor as my reading must be, seems to me I didnt start this thread, meaning I would fall under the reply category. hmm....




I think this falls under the saying.... You can polish a turd, but when the day is over, its still a turd. I cant build a good engine with a bad cam, no matter how awesome I am.

Back to the reading thing....

And I wrote in my first post:

So yah, this year I have my new custom ground Comp solid roller paired up with my new AFR 195s. The object of the cam/head swap was to pick up some power and torque.

BTW, you sound like an engine builder too....

Told 150 facts and the typical *Must be your fault* comeback. Professional, real professional.

I'm done with this thread, because as I said, my life will go on. I dont have enough company loyalty to sit here and bicker.

THEGENERAL

if hes one of the replys..then i want to know why hes saying he did this and he did that unless hes the one that put the engine together for the original poster ....or he changed his user name and if thats the case you need to say so ...lol..i couldnt agree with Aron213 in his reply to this post .....its highly doubtfull that it was anything other than assembly error or user error ive seen lots of these cams perform without a problem ......and its possible you got one bad on i guess but its highly doubtfull sounds like your not gonna be satisfied with whatever response you get here except ........."yeah your right comp cams sucks " which your not gonna get .....LOL..it just gets old when someone has a problem they have to come here and complain and when someone trys to tell them that it probably wasnt the cam it was them that messed it up they get highly defensive ....lol..

89gta383

iTrader: (5)

I sent my cam back to comp for them to examine.

The 2 cams I had in the block before that one were billet rollers, funny how the one(comp) that wasn't a billet core is the one that looks like hell.

They are selling ****. Where do you think all those shavings whent on my cam, up in smoke?

They suck, and need to fix this problem asap. I was using comp 950 springs, rockers and their roller cam, no oiling problems to speak of.

DIGGLER

iTrader: (1)

you said youve had 2 comp cams go bad in your motor....

theres a .00001% chance of them having a bad run of cams (material)
but do you really think you would have gotten 2 bad ones?!?!
out of the thousands of racers and street cars with comp cams that have had no problems you are the sole person that finds comp's bad cams.


impossible i say. there is SOMETHING else wrong.

let us know how your new cam goes.

89gta383

iTrader: (5)

I had a comp and a blue racer flat tappet go bad in an older 83 z28, not this car.

The 89 gta had a crane and lpe 219 roller in it with no problems before the comp custom roller grind.

I suspected there was a problem with the older block that killed both flat tappets years ago, but this is a factory roller block.

New comp roller 875 lifters also on the new cam with comp 950 springs shouldn't be a problem.

Funny thing is, the tech guy from comp says that it is normal wear, and he has seen the pics.

TPIMonteLS

iTrader: (1)

Most Comp cams are fine, obviously. But there have been quite a few that were bad and if they(Comp) doesn't even try to find out why but simply offer a settlement(poor one at that if you have other damage due to it) doesn't that tell you something?

A few people in this thread are pretty ignorant about the situation...there just might be a good possibility that Comp has made a good handful of crappy cams. I have a new Comp hydro. roller in my 383 and its doing just fine...but lately there are some issues about Comp's quality, one being a good amount of *soft* cams, perhaps a bad batch.

This just isn't one or two people you guys, this has been quite a few all around...it is possible for an almighty company like Comp to f-something up. I'd think a person who builds motors for a living to realize that.

DIGGLER

iTrader: (1)

original guy has had 3 cams go bad on him... not all comp's. thats alot of bad cams for one person. not to sound like an *******, but it just sounds like something else going on.

TPIMonteLS

iTrader: (1)

The way I read it the guy had 1 Comp go bad but his engine builder showed him 3 that went bad on him(the builder/machine shop).

If 3 cams went bad in one motor, yes I'd think there is a good chance of something else going bad but there seems to be a good amount of crappy Comp cams out there, considering I'm not really hearing of any other bad ones by other makers(surely it happens but alot less) is somewhat interesting to me.

Like I said, I have a Comp cam and am happy with it...but there is/was some quality issues that Comp had/has. Hopefully its fixed either way. Unless all these motors built with Comp cams by reputable shops are having brain farts and forgetting how to build them .

Confuzed1

iTrader: (4)

I may as well chime in.

The first Comp cam that the builder installed on the 400 I dropped in a few months ago, wiped two lobes on the dyno.

He returned it, and they gave him another one with no hesitation. To describe what had happened he said "They sold me a "soft" cam, and they knew it".

He wasn't happy and I definatley wasn't! I told him to make sure the lifters were free in the bores and make sure to get all the shavings out. I'm sure damage was done.

I've built two engines myself - but not using Comp cams, and never had one problem.

Would my next cam be a Comp?? - I doubt it.

I know I like Crower and Crane.......Hmmmmm

383backinblack

everything in my valve train is, always was, and always will be comp cams.

except rocker studs....ARP for those.

comp 304H with .620 lift, and 304 duration at .006 (244 at .050)

pro magnum rockers, pro magnum hyd roller lifters, 10 deg retainers and locks, 987 dual springs, that lasted 3 YEARS with that cam, which is insane.

comp aluminum stud girdles, comp timing set

motor has about 175 passes on it at this point, and about 15,000 miles of street driving.

89gta383

iTrader: (5)

Guy from comp called me yesterday and said my cam tested a 51 on a 48-52 scale for hardness. Since I bought it in 2002, it is out of their 1 year warranty and they can't do anything about it. I told him to throw it in the trash.

If you get one from them, make it a steel billet core instead of that cast iron crap.:nono:

AllGoNoShow

For those having problems wiping Comp. Cams- did you use the red break in lube that Comp. ships with it? Cause honestly, I would not let that stuff get anywhere near the cam-get some gray break in moly lube from Crane. That seems to be a concensus among other forums that the red break in Comp. lube is crap and could be one of the causes of wiped cams...I don't even know how that red stuff would even stay on the cam-its like water.

I used the Crane moly lube on my Comp. Xs268 solid cam which is a pretty stout cam and it survived fine even after a terrible break in(had to restart car like 5 times in the first 30 minutes-overheated twice). Running 13.5s @102 now with a 355 with World S/R 1.94/1.5 heads in a 3850lb vehicle(easy 12 second engine in your thirdgens).

ljnowell

actually most thirdgen v8s weigh in pretty close to that.

unknown_host

iTrader: (1)

I had the same problem with my XE274 camshaft. Actually I believe comp's lifters that come with their camshafts are crap. They were too tight for the lifter bores on my BRAND NEW BLOCK. Swapped in some GMPP lifters and didnt have any problems.

AllGoNoShow

Really? I always thought they were in the 3,400-3,600 range for some reason.

383backinblack

my car weighs 3667lbs with me in it and a 1/4 tank of fuel

( i weigh about 220)

ljnowell

Ive seen them weigh any where from 3200 to 4000. 3200 is usually someone who has some stripped stuff. The 3900 pounder usually has stereo, wheels, etc. These were some pretty heavy cars, really.