Camshaft/Valvetrain damage....anyone explain this?

[rich5150]

I'm in the process of tearing my GT500 engine apart, due to a hole in a piston #8....

Anyways got to the valve covers, I noticed that the follower was OFF, laying inside the head, and damage to that specific lobe....
Basically #8 got too hot, broke part of the piston off, I'm guessing that got stuck in the valve, causing it to stay open, the camshaft came flying around, smacked it...etc caused the abrasion you see in the one picture...

Now to my question, looking at the various pictures below, I notice scrapes, on some lobes, but not others. Could this be from spinning the motor to high(RPM)? The engine has 3900 miles on it, only 1 oil change using 5w-50Motorcraft oil.

Any ideas?

MORE PICS
Picasa Web Albums - Rich - GT500 Engine ...

 

[E. Green Cobra]

I believe Al Papitto made a post on the corral, about finding a follower laying inside the head, I don't believe he had damage though, had an over-rev, then the engine lost a small amount of power. He tore it down and found the follower.

 

[Shaker1]

3900 miles, huh? What mods do you have? Warranty?

 

[rdsnk46]

Man......when I heard your car start at Mustang Week, it sounded bad to me. I think it may have been broken back then. Sorry to hear you ended up breaking the motor.

Warranty?

 

[Robertt305]

Mods?

 

[rich5150]

KenneBell 2.8 blower 18psi, full exhaust, tune.

 

[rich5150]

Man......when I heard your car start at Mustang Week, it sounded bad to me. I think it may have been broken back then. Sorry to hear you ended up breaking the motor.

Warranty?

It wasn't broken at all down there..... You must have heard someone else's car? I drove it for months after that without issue.

 

[GOTSVT?]

Rich,
Whose tune are you running?

 

[rich5150]

Rich,
Whose tune are you running?

Ken's from our shop that I work at. ModularDepot.

 

[GOTSVT?]

Hmmm, its funny that Andy said that at MW week something sounded broken. One of the guys that was with me said the same thing when you were loading the car onto the SVTP trailer at Planet Hollywood show. I shrugged it off and said sounds like noisy injectors to me! It almost sounds like the car went lean. Have you talked to Kenne Bell yet?
I would try for a warranty motor.

 

[rlhay2]

Just curious, stock fuel rails?

When that camshaft met the valve that did not want to move, it is going to put a hellish amount of stress on the cam. Could that have caused the scoring on the other lobes?

 

[rich5150]

Hmmm, its funny that Andy said that at MW week something sounded broken. One of the guys that was with me said the same thing when you were loading the car onto the SVTP trailer at Planet Hollywood show. I shrugged it off and said sounds like noisy injectors to me! It almost sounds like the car went lean. Have you talked to Kenne Bell yet?
I would try for a warranty motor.

Your response has no bearing on what the initial post was asking... but..
I'm not doubting anything that you may have heard.... I did have an exhaust leak at one time that was eventually found/tightened, but Im not sure if that was before or after MW.
I drove the car to the track 10x, put over 1000 miles on it...there is nothing wrong/broken. The car performed perfectly each time.

The engine #8 cyl grenaded on a ultra cold night out, and I ran out of injector/fuel. I should have had bigger injectors in there for the power that I was at.

I know what caused the carnage, the POINT OF MY POST, was to figure out if there was an oiling problem or such.... on the top of the motor and if anyone had ever witnessed the "wear" you see on the cam lobes...that's all.

 

[rich5150]

Just curious, stock fuel rails?

When that camshaft met the valve that did not want to move, it is going to put a hellish amount of stress on the cam. Could that have caused the scoring on the other lobes?

I figured out on the ONE LOBE that is REALLY bad, the follower fell off partially and the cam lobe came by a few times and was striking it.....via damage inspected on the follower itself.

The other cam lobes is what Im concerned about... just not sure how that coul have happened... particulate in the oil? Over-revving? I had my rev-limiter at 6500. :shrug:

I'm inquiring about this so I can make sure to not make the same mistake again as well as find out if anyone else has just seen this as a common flaw somewhere..

 

[rdsnk46]

Well @ 6500rpms you shouldnt have had any issue.

 

[1930ford]

My guess is a lack of oil supply ? Looks like when the follower came out/off the hyd lash adjuster also came out(oil pressure) and made contact with the cam lobe. Most likely it caused a large oil leak from the lash adjuster being out of the bore and caused a lack of lube to the other folowers. Is the damage on just one side ? You also stated this may have happened on a cold night and the thick oil may be the root cause of the follwer coming off in the first place. In the past I have had many issues running cold engines with thicker oils and have switched to lighter weight oils.

Just my.02
Troy

 

[rich5150]

My guess is a lack of oil supply ? Looks like when the follower came out/off the hyd lash adjuster also came out(oil pressure) and made contact with the cam lobe. Most likely it caused a large oil leak from the lash adjuster being out of the bore and caused a lack of lube to the other folowers. Is the damage on just one side ? You also stated this may have happened on a cold night and the thick oil may be the root cause of the follwer coming off in the first place. In the past I have had many issues running cold engines with thicker oils and have switched to lighter weight oils.

Just my.02
Troy

I think oiling might have been an issue for the marring on the cam lobes.. My engine builder told me it was less than .003" so nothing to worry about, just some scarring. I'm sorta just comparing this to 40k+ miles on my 03 cobra that I had, when I took it apart the lobes looked new. Also my 04 Lightning when I took the cams out of it, it looked perfect, no marks or anything on the cam lobes.

The "marks" on the cams are on both banks...left and right.

As best as what I can figure after getting the heads off, part of the piston(ringland and above) bounced around in #8 for a while, then got sucked BACK up into the intake manifold and then back down into #6 for a while before exiting or burning up. Both parts of damage were on the drivers side head, the passenger side head looked perfect, no issues whatsoever.

I could swear that there was a TSB or something about head-noise/lash-adjuster noise somewhere, maybe I'm thinking of some other case... but I need to research it more. :read:

I just want to make sure I measure everything before I put it back together. I like having piece of mind that its 100% perfect with no shortcuts.

Thanks for the help/responses guys.

 

[rich5150]

Well @ 6500rpms you shouldnt have had any issue.

I didn't think so, there are a # of guys out there spinning their stock valvetrain to 65-6700 all day long... just threw it out there as a possibility.