Hello,
I have a 66 Mustang Fastback, 289 with SN60 supercharger.
Aprox a year ago I rebuilt the top end of the motor, new hyd cam, lifters, reworked the heads, ect.

After about a year of driving, aprox 1500 miles I started hearing a ticking noise, I trouble shot it down to the lifters. After I pulled the intake, I saw that nearly every lifter on the left side of the engine was chewed up. After pulling the camshaft I could see the corresponding cam lobes were pretty rough too, not worn away flat but the cam edges were chewed up a bit.

The right side of the engine lifters and cam lobes were fine. All lifters were soaked in oil as normal. While driving the car oil pressure was good and the engine never got hot or overheated.

Attached are a couple of pictures of the car before I took the motor apart again.

Any ideas as to what might have caused this? Tips?

Thanks,

Mike



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nice car, is that a real shelby?

what oil are you using?

if the block is a ford production block, not a ford racing block, it is from improper break in or cheap parts.

too high a spring pressure.

not enough zddp in the oil.

low quality parts.

you need to disassemble your engine to get all the metal from the cam out.

can you get the metal out without disassembly? NO.


next time break it in with straight joe gibbs break in oil or valvolone vr-1 with 2 ounces of zddp and no more than 280 open spring pressure. if you have dual springs just run the outers for break in or send the cam out to have it broken in. Do not use comp cams cam killer lifters.

 

Yeah, flat tappet cams and modern oils don't get along well. Removing ZDDP from oil has caused all sorts of wear issues in all sorts of engines, especially lifters.

 

No the car is not a real GT350...I wish.

I used comp cam parts to include their recommended springs ect, I used a high zinc oil.

I'm going to pull the motor and tear it down, better to do it the right way rather than run into this problem again.

I keep getting a lot of advice to convert the motor into a roller...thoughts?

 

I forgot to ask, if not comp cam hyd lifters, which would you recommend?

 

I've determined that sometimes breaking in a flat tappet is a crap shoot. I've done everything right before and had one fail. I don't think the metal is as good as it used to be.

 

Technically you're supposed to use light weight break in valve springs just to break the cam in, but not everyone does it.

This is one of the primary reasons to run a roller cam.

 

If you followed the cam mfgr's directions and this still happened, they should work with you on fixing this. Otherwise, roller is the way to go.

 

Summit did warranty my cam after it failed break in, but I had bought cam and lifters from them. If you didn't buy both wherever you got the cam, good luck.

 

CRANE high rev lifters.

comp lifters are junk. the internals occasionally leak or make a ticking noise and the lifter face occasionally looks like it was surfaced on a coarse bench grinder.

i use their cams and am a comp dealer.

it is still likely due to improper break in or high spring pressure during break in as i mentioned. you must have your spring pressure measured. if you tell me what your cam is i can tell you what you need.

you can use a roller but i wouldn't because there are few goid profiles in retrofit rollers. you also need to run 290 open or less for break in and most rollers require at least 310 open so there is your spring pressure prob for break in again. you can run light springs on rollers for break in also.