Do these cams need replacement?

[Turbo Shogun]

To make a long story short, this is what I found when I took out my camshafts for inspection,

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I know those journals are FUBAR'd, but can I still run them safely? In short, what are the consequences of just throwing these back on the car? I know about having to replace them, but these are $600 HKS 264s!!! Do I REALLY have to?

####ing hell, am I having a bad day. ...

Thanks for any help.

 

[awdrst]

What does the head and cam cap look like? There can also be a problem with that if the cam looks like that. Can you feel the scratch if you run your nail over it? I would not take the chance of running them but thats just me. You can always just toss in a set of stockers pretty cheap if you still don't have yours.

 

[Turbo Shogun]

I still have my stock cams, but the dowel-hole on the intake cam's been tweaked (previous owner snapped a t-belt).

When my father and I were building the motor 4 years ago, we were arguing about the proper torque for the bearing caps. The book (Chilton's) said 15-20 lbs, my dad, thinking he knows better, torqued them to 50 ft/lbs. As a result, I have 4 bolts that have the first few threads either gone, or mangled beyond repair.

The scoring is pretty deep, my fingernail gets stuck when run over them, the head doesn't have as deep grooves, and the caps don't look/feel bad. I'll post up pictures tomorrow.

Can't I just take them to a machine shop to get them smoothened out, or would that not help at all?

Thanks again.

 

[BUCK]

You could try & milk some time out of those Cams by using a good flat small Stone & knock off any raised scores - Machining would just take the cam Journals undersize & that's not cool - But never put that Cam in a new-like Head - If need be tap the "wounded" head to American UNC-course at the Bearing caps - The Cam is the FIRST thing to starve for Oil but with your extensive Mods I'm sure you are running BSE & NO stock Water to Oil Cooler as either could cause this as well as "DAD" overtorquing those teeny piss-poor Metric Threads on the Cam Bearing Cap fasteners...

 

[The Flash]

If the cams are going back in the same head I would try to polishing the areas on the cams and head that look scored. This is just my opinion. I all so would keep a close I on the oil pressure.

 

[Turbo Shogun]

So here's more pics of the damage,

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That bolt doesn't even look like it could handle 55 ft/lbs!

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The gouges are pretty deep - enough to get your fingernail stuck on them.

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The cam journal from the above pictured saddle.

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The saddle after above pictured.

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Scoring on caps.

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Now my next question is how to keep metal shavings out of the oil passages when cleaning up those gouges ... I've decided to take a gamble and just sand the caps/saddle/journals as smooth as I can until I save enough money for a head and new cams this winter. The cam lobes themselves are in perfect condition. I'm going to repair the threads in the head with a helicoil and a good helping of industrial thread-lock and just torque everything to spec.

Any other comments, guys? Thanks for the advice so far.

 

[Turbo Shogun]

Well, I decided to just sand all those scores down (but not too much) on the cams, saddles and caps. The stripped threads in the head were repaired with a helicoil.

At least it gave me an excuse to put my injectors and upgrade lifters in. She'll be running today. Hopefully I can give a progress report in a month or so. Still a little weary about losing lift if I'd sanded the saddles too much or what not. The caps were torqued back to spec (15 ft/lbs). The cams didn't appear to be bent, so I put them back in.

We'll see how this turns out, but it looks good for now.