Lifter Failure Carnage! Disassembling Mopar 440 That Lost Cam And Lifters On Break-In

Cam companies love this. Why sell a $300 camshaft when you can sell a $750 cam.........

The answer is simple.
Comp Cams were made here in the USA...
Until, fuckin' COVID. During lockdown back in 20-21, these companies furloughed alot of people, n many quit.
Comp Cams, an other companies I won't mention here, moved manufacturing overseas to stay afloat. Look at your Comp Cams packaging, you'll now see a barely legible little sticker that says, you guessed it, Made in China. That everything went to shit. I have two, pre-covid Comp Cams, one SBC, one BBC,
Both flat tappet cam set ups. Both engines running great. Break-in was as prescribed. Used Comp Cams break-in oil, ran engine for 45 minutes at 2500rpm, changed oil/filter etc. Have had no issues.
Small Block over 30k, Big Block at 16,5k.
Oil stays clean for about two months before changing colors, or starts to get dirty. I change engine oils in the spring n fall, regardless of mileage. I don't pay attention to mileage.
Protection for summer n protection for winter. If doing over 1k miles per month, you may want to change more often.

Oh yeah, it’s all coming together…. Again 😂
It would be faulty machine work on the camshaft?

The speaker is a dud

The faces of the lifters, which mate to the cam lobe, are supposed to have a bit of crown to them - to match the pitch of the cam lobe, in order to impart spin on the lifter when the engine is running. Many aftermarket lifters lack the proper amount of this crown, which is leading to the failures.

Don’t use stomp for cams and lifters if u know what I mean 👍👍👍

Very detailed work. Great job

That Lego set seems to have closer tolerances and harder material than the cam and lifters.

Elgin pro Stock cams are fine

When you buy junk you get junk. I should have bought 200 cases of oil before they took the Zinc out of it.

Had a bad lifter tick on a fresh 440 build. When taking off the valley gasket we noticed a sketchy cam lobe as well. Comp cam and lifters. Replaced with ISKY and Johnson lifters.

Probably, also, because the cam blanks are coming from a place that rhymes with vachina

What break-in oil was used?

crap parts made by inCOMPetant metallurgists

Just got nailed by this Crap Cam Plague today. SBC 350. @!#&%!

With all these flat tapet cam failures, another thing to keep in mind is that all newer regular and synthetic oils no longer contain Sulphur which is necessary to keep lifters rotating, so the next best thing is that at each oul change you'll need to add break in oil.IMHO

So sad. I will play a funeral dirge

Just my two cents here ,, the cams not the issue, find old stock lifters ! Older the better Js hood that helps

I have had 2 CC failures... It can't just be coincidence. I have installed quite a few cams but 2 from the same company failed.. I used a Summit K6401 Cam and lifter kit on my personal 440 and no issues. Cam break in was easy. I have a couple videos posted about this as well.

My stomach turned , I'm sorry & Birdsong was blaming Chinese Lifters (I'm sure you're aware)
May I ask you if the cam break-in additives (zink I think) make a difference because?? I didn't hear you mention it , but I could of missed that part Jamie.
EPA removing dinosaur stuff from oil (zinc etc ..) for cat. converter longevity has me wondering this & Chinese Lifters combined is destroying Cams ? Birdsong found diff. lifters too but I'm still wondering if it's the oil that changed in late 90's

Try getting ahold of customer service at Comp. 6 weeks, twice a day, no live person. Forget about the "warranty".

Yep, built my 440 for a Ramcharger 4x4. At 378 miles, a lifter was so worn it had a hole in the bottom. Two other lifters were getting that way. Being very hard of hearing, I couldn`t hear it going bad. It was a Comp cam and hydraulic lifters. Went to buy an Eddy cam, opened the box, the cam was in a Comp box. Sent the junk back.

Comp Cams suck now, never gonna buy one, especially when they won't work with you they're products ..

you bought a " chinesium " cam and lifters . its SO hard to avoid such junk .

I've heard so much about Comp Cams being trash & failing. Are their lifters failing or just being blamed because they've been used more often by builders?

I'd say most of the trash ended up in your filter. I would recommend replacing the pump. The camshaft failures come down to oil. Put a paint mark on every lifter. Roll the engine over a dozen times without the intake. Ensure all lifters rotate. Dump in some Lucas. You need something that will stick to your surfaces. Slick 50, dura lube, STP, Lucas. Break in lube, zinc plus, yada yada. It isn't working. Use the Lucas or one of the others I've listed. People have done the hardness tests and proven it's not in the metal.

I've had it happen... yeah, truly sucks. That's why I like hydraulic roller cams for street. So much easier to check the lifter to cam surface parallelism. You can trust Bullet cams!

Have the rockers tested for Rockwell hardness. I bet the lifters were never hardened

I believe that all of that is inferior steel and bad quench treatment. I'm no expert but I grab as much info on anything relevant.

Most of these failures have not been the cam or the lifters. Most of these problems are an error or errors in the valve train geometry. Wrong spring pressure, wrong installed height or wrong spring for the installed height the cam expects, excessive lifter bore margin and wrong length push rods are all a part of this problem. There is no fudge factor in these parts. They are either correct or not. Anything that causes too much or not enough pressure to exist between the lifter face and the cam lobe is a failure waiting.

No amount of Rockwell hardness will prevent metal on metal contact between the lifter and lobe from destroying themselves. Looking at the cam and lifters after they have failed only tells you they failed which you already know.

Any of the parts in the valve train that are too loose will turn the rocker arm into a hammer. To a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Assembly lube is only there so you can quickly get the engine going and pumping oil.

The lubrication problem or lacking the use of assembly lube, cam assembly lube and the cam makers recommended oil for break in is still a real problem too. Also pre-prime the oiling system before you ever start cranking on the engine.


Those "cheeks" you are talking about are the chamfered sides of the rods. One side of the rod big end is not chamfered and the other is. The chamfered side MUST face the crankshaft.

The machine shop I use still does quite a few flat tappet cams and they have had a sum total of zero failures.

(Know it alls)

You didn't do this..
Did you do that...
You're probably....
You should have...

(Me)

THE CAM AND LIFTTERS WENT ANUSED!!!!

Is a roller the way to go now?

I know this is going to sound unprofessional .but we were very poor.we never owned a torgue wrench..we built a lot of motors on a car hood on the ground..the last one I know of was a 455 oldsmobile. The last time I ask my dad he told me it had 80.000 miles on it
...built a lot of chevy motors..big block and small block..never had a problem..raced a lot .and that one Olds motor was an h.o.motor.69 442.

I no what the problem is.there not as good anymore.and no zinc in the oil..have had this same problems..just make sure you use break in lube on that cam.

Not trying to start a flame war or anything, but, whose on the hook for the failure? Is just a cost of playing the game unfortunately?

I had a cusyomer who had a 455 Olds he rebuilt for a customer of his and wiped out 2 sets of cam & lifters during break in and was getting very frustrated. I told him to try Amsoil Z-Rod 10W-30 which is specifically for flat tappet cams. Worked like a charm, no more problems. Unfortuneatly todays oils do not have ZDDP for enviroment reasons and the fact that engines produced today all come with roller valve trains and do not require a high pressure lubricant. The other problem we have is that when we use aftermarket cams with higher lift and heavier valve springs we are going beyond what the original engineers had designed for. For a time I was the Technical Service Manager with a NAPA owned company that remanufactured engines for sale in Western Canada and the Pacific Northwest in the USA. I spent a lot of time dealing with engine installers with little previous experience or knowledge . Analyzing problems over the phone trying to take my experience with full scale engine analyzers and gas analyzers and boil ti down to what they had on hand, usually a vaccuum gauge, tachometer and timing light with sometimes a compression gauge. Fun times for all.

Chrysler has always specified molyibdenum sulfide break in lubricant for cam lobes. The gray stuff that comes with an application brush. I still have some I purchased about 50 years ago. With flat tappet cams always use oil with ZDDP in it. I have seen many cams fail on start up when using oil without it. The surface treatment you see on a new cams is called Parckerising, it is an etching process done to help retain lubrication during break in. As a liscenced Journyman mechanic for almost 50 years I can remember in the early 1980s when GM was having a huge problem with lifter failures in small blocks. It was so bad that it was almost impossible to get cams and lifters for them, especially 305 engines. It turned out that Gm had switched to a different manufacturer for lifters and case hardening on the bottoms was bad. They would only last for about 30,000 miles and then fail. This problem took them about 3 0r 4 years before they got everything switched back to the original supplier and the problem went away. I don't have a lot of faith with this red assembly lube that comes with camshafts today and I am going to stick with the moly lube.

I am 70 and never had a cam fail like that. I rebuilt several small and big blocks. However I load the cam and lifters with molly grease and run them just above idle until the lifters pump up. I know they tell you to run it at 3000 rpm for break in but I thought it would sling all the grease off in no time.

So is there another problem with roller lifters and cam other than the cost? And you have not really mentioned the oil is part of the issue

We were taught in mechanic school to put 1 lifter base against the side of another lifter and that is a very good straightedge to check it with for the crown

I guess you have Summits combination windage tray oil pan gasket part I have used it a few times and it works fantastic, which is similar to Modern Hemi style set up

Is there a way to do hardness test on the lifters? Checking now would be interesting. If you can check a new set, would be peace of mind.

These days poor quality seems to be built right in. It's a big problem across the industry and you can't always blame it on chinese made parts. With this type of damage it's easy for the manufacturer to blame it on incorrect break in procedures and not warranty the product. Anything even remotely attached to "high performance" means you're on your own.

bought a voodoo cam 60103 for my 400 mopar and put howards lifters in it. didnt even break it in "properly". idle it for a little bit, then gave it 1500rpm a little bit. runs great, no problems. i wont use any other brand of lifters.

ive never torn and engine down after it wiped a cam. oil filter is there for a reason.

The second guessing on warranties [read blame the customer] these days: better clean/inspect every cam lobe and lifter, and explore returns while its cheap & easy.

I am 66 years old and worked in 2 different engine rebuilding shops 5 years each , plus I was doing my own engines before and after working in these places. I have never seen such a rash of camshaft failures before . I personally think it has to do with manufacturing techniques and quality control . There is problems across the board with crap parts . Unfortunately this is an expensive failure when it happens . I would be pissed if it happened to me . Glad you caught it quickly .

Rod bearings are junk, they're scratched ALL the way around.. toss the mains too.

China is clearly not hardening the lifters.