Just want to see if anyone has wiped a Hydraulic Roller cam lobe on first start up. If so, or you know someone that has, How did it happen?
I'm trying to track down the source of this metal in my oil and I know this is uncommon but would like to see if its a possibility.

 

Hydraulic rollers have no special break-in procedure for the camshaft and it's highly unlikely that they would damage a cam lobe...UNLESS, the lifter spun in the bore. Ford lifters have flat-spots on both sides, and "dogbones" that hold each pair of lifters in place, and the dogbones are held down by a "spider plate" that bolts in the lifter galley. Not sure about Chevys, but you should have some kind of lifter alignment retainer...if a roller lifter WERE to spin in the bore, cam damage would happen pretty fast I imagine.

 

could just be the cam break-in lube that you smeared around the camshaft before install. pull the valve covers and have someone crank over the motor and see if all the valves move the same amount, if so then you're fine, if one or two valves don't move at all, then you know what happened

 

Yes Factory Roller SBC's have the dogbones and spider plate as well. I don't think a lifter has spun in the bore unless it reset itself because I've done the valve lash and all rockers moved 'normally' (I guess).
I didn't pay very close attention to the amount of travel in each one but its hard to eyeball hundredths of inches too. Turning over the motor and going over the valvetrain again is on the list before another start up though; I just wanted to see if this had ever happened to anyone before.

 

Did you have the old block tanked or anything? Could just be particulate and whatnot, run down into the oil pan.... I never tanked the block Im running now, was doing a budget bottom-end to see what I could get from the combination on cast pistons....and I had all kinds of funk on my 2 magnetic drain plugs.

 

Yea it was tanked. The guy I bought the assembled shortblock from (JTMiller92 on here) had it tanked, cam bearings installed, milled for rod clearance, bored and honed, decked it .015, and had the rotating assembly balanced.
My builder said he did have to grind some more on the block for a rod but used couple cans on brake cleaner getting everything clean again.

 

May or may not pertain to a SBC lobe, but I began to eat a lobe on my 350 Cummins a few years back, and the metal on the drain plug was like small shards, with very slight fuzz.

I saw your other post, are you able to look down the dizzy hole and view the cam gear?

If it were me, I'd have the metal you gathered analyzed for content, you should know then where it's coming from.

 

Metal from the drain plug is long gone. However, I did keep samples of the oil from both changes so far along with both the filters.

I've been running oil over the heads and draining it to try and flush whatever this crap is out and it keeps coming out nasty with the silver metal sheen to it still. When it sits the metal particles settle and it looks like dirty oil until you mix it up...

I havn't looked at the cam gear itself but the dizzy gear looks good to go.

 

If you keep running oil down the heads, and it's coming out metal....you have major problems

 

There have been instances where cams themselves don't meet the correct harness spec, also instances even with roller cams that shuold be run in with light weight springs for a scertain time, before going to high pressure ones.

Your oil should be the clue, IMO, have it tested for contentn and see what's in it.

Might be somehting you can take care of externally, might be something that the engne has to come out for, either way, best to know before you proceed.

 

Yea, we will see what the oil keeps looking like.

I do remember hearing that some cams need to be run with the second valve spring removed if you are running some crazy spring pressures but this is a pretty normal cam so I got matching springs (.510/.520 or .544/.555 lift after the 1.6 rockers). I didn't think this applied to me since I'm running the Comp 987 springs which have a spring rate of 344 in/lbs.

 

That's for non-roller cams for break-in only.

 

If your seeing metallic and this is the inital start up, you'd better pack your lucnh cuz your going to see it much more until motor is broken in completely. What do you thinnk all the rings are doing against the bore right now? everything is new and needs to "seat" which means all thing metal internally will "whittle" away at eachother until a pattern is established. I dont care if your back woods ***** or nascar builder bob, any new engine will have metal shavings. So long as you can pick them up with a magnet your fine....it's when you get a bunch of non-ferrious metal (copper) that you should start to wonder what's going on internally.

 

I didn't think removing the second spring was for roller cams but I don't know much.
Thanks IHI, I know you know your stuff. Thanks to everyone else giving advise too, this is just my first rebuilt motor and I've put everything I have into it.
I know to expect a little metal but it seemed to me there was too much sheen in the oil and too many shavings on the drain plug.
After many quarts of oil over the heads I finally got it to come out clean! I know this will probably change once started again but this was more for my confidence. I now know there is totally clean oil in the motor for now.