AJP camshaft wear

AJP camshaft wear

Author
Discussion

MiniV8

Original Poster:

23 posts

154 months

Monday 11th March
quotequote all
I checked valve clearances and noticed the intake lobes have started to wear out.
-Does anyone have experience, how much mileage is left with wear like in attached picture?
-I would also need advice, what is the best place to source new cams and lifters?



hoppo4.2

1,542 posts

193 months

Monday 11th March
quotequote all
not done one for years but around 10+years ago I had one much worse.

I couldn't source one at the time as the early style clatter cams were discontinued. I was able to get a local machine shop to reprofile and reharden.

hard to say how much time you have but you have to think that it is producing metal fileings that can't be good for your engine.

ukkid35

6,285 posts

180 months

Tuesday 12th March
quotequote all
What were the valve clearances?

The tappets are softer that the cam shafts, so if the tappets are not dished it's likely that the cam shafts have been like that for some time and the tappets have been replaced

What oil have you been using?

High ZDDP is critical in flat tappet engines, especially ones with aggressive cam profiles like the AJP8

MiniV8

Original Poster:

23 posts

154 months

Tuesday 12th March
quotequote all
ukkid35 said:
What were the valve clearances?

The tappets are softer that the cam shafts, so if the tappets are not dished it's likely that the cam shafts have been like that for some time and the tappets have been replaced

What oil have you been using?

High ZDDP is critical in flat tappet engines, especially ones with aggressive cam profiles like the AJP8
All intake clearances were .008 - .009
I have owned the car for twelve years and checked clearances three times, this is the first time I noticed any wear on camshaft.
All that time I have used Castrol Edge 5w-40 oil. When I noticed the wear I also thought that maybe I should have been using something else..


ukkid35

6,285 posts

180 months

Wednesday 13th March
quotequote all
So the clearances are perfect, but you now have lobe wear that was not there previously

I can't see how this could be anything other than lubrication, unless perhaps the engine was not allowed to warm up sufficiently?

A friend of mine used Castrol Edge in his Chimaera, and the cam shaft was destroyed

So my money is on the oil

I doesn't look bad though, not enough to affect performance, so I would just monitor it for now

It's not like new cam shafts are easily available

I guess you could get them reprofiled, but I know nothing about that

Are there any marking on the lifter faces?

My badly neglected engine had dished lifters when I bought it, but the cam lobes were fine



Edited by ukkid35 on Wednesday 13th March 11:18

ukkid35

6,285 posts

180 months

Friday 15th March
quotequote all
Thankfully these have been retired


DuncanM

6,507 posts

286 months

Monday 18th March
quotequote all
I have Castrol Edge 5w30 in my Cerbera, it has good ZDDP values from looking at the spec sheet.

Does Castrol Edge have a bad reputation?