I have a newly built 383. I has a flat tappet hydraulic cam. I had trouble getting the motor started (ignition wiring problem). The ignition wire wasn't carrying enough current so it would make a spark but a weak one. It took 4 days and probably 50 or more starting attempts to diagnose and fix the problem.

I'm really worried I've completely scraped off the cam lube (Lunati cam with their supplied lube, thick black pasty stuff) and I may have even started wearing the lobes off the thing.

Anyone have any advice on how I should proceed?

a) Hope for the best, and just start and run-in the motor like nothing happened

b) Pull the intake and somehow try to re-lube the cam, then run-in

c) Inspect the cam somehow and replace if necessary?

Anyone have a feel for how much damage I may have done? FYI, this cam has a 260 advertised duration, 1.48 inches of lobe lift and has been nitrided for extra wear resistance. I pre-oiled the motor before the first start and got oil to the top-end, but not on the start-up attempts over the last 4 days. I did see the oil pressure gauge registering reasonable pressure even on short startup bursts (in the 50 psi range). It is a high volume oil pump. I doubt I've had much lubrication to the top-end though.

Thanks for any advice.

 

At this point, I would go with option a.....maybe. If damage was done now, or if it shows up later, you still only have the cam and lifters to deal with. So, I don't see you as having any more to lose if you leave it alone. It's possible you're lucky and no damage was done at all too. Another plus or minus factor is, how heavy of valve springs do you have? You running single or dual springs? And once you got it running, did you give the engine a good 20 minute break-in? For the cam's sake, once the engine starts, you want to keep it running for that long, and at least 2k rpm's, varying the rpm's up and down periodically. If you didn't do a proper initial break-in run, then that just compounds what you may have done to it when cranking and cranking. It's a crap shoot, really.

 

Trouble is, this motor has never started, and wouldn't start initially. So, I never could give it it's 20 min breakin of 2K+ RPM. All it has had so far is 500-1000 RPM splutter/stop sessions. Hence my deep concern for the health of the cam lobes.

As for springs, I'm using beehive springs, with about 110 lb seat pressure and 180 nose pressures (lowish pressures). I guess I can hope these lowish pressures combined with a nitrided cam could save the lobes.

 

Oh, when you said you fixed the problem, I thought you finally got it to run.
So did you have the distributor hooked up to the factory resistance wire, is that what the problem was? Electronic or points & condenser ignition?

 

Yup, I had it hooked to the resistor wire.

With a good clean connection to the battery it fired up loud and strong for about 2 seconds till I killed it (it was getting late at night in my quiet little neighborhood). If I decide to go with plan (a) I'll be running it in this afternoon.

 

Update: Started the car and ran it in for about 10 mins before my temp gauge (reproduction console gauge cluster) said the motor was *really* hot. I shut down in a panic, but got my infrared temp gun to verify temps. The motor was running only at 140 F or so (at the intake water neck). Headers were running at 370 F or so.

So, I started again, and ran for another 10 minutes until I pi$$ed off the neighbors (straight/open headers) and had to shut it down again. :-)

I took it for a spin around the block just to complete the angry neighbor scenario (and to make sure I was ready for the short trip to the muffler shop tomorrow). :-)

Anyway, cam sounds great so I guess I dodged a bullet with all the startup trouble. We'll see.

 

Fingers crossed!

 

Any news?

 

Yea, the cam sounds pretty healthy. I went to put it on a dyno, and had a host of other problems (carb air/fuel mixture and atomization issues, broken valve spring!, leaking pan/gasket) so I haven't actually gotten a really good pull on it yet to see that everything is in good shape.

I think the cam is fine. I had beehive springs which have lowish pressures, and used good oil and a ZDDP-like additive so that probably helped too.

FYI, a beehive spring broke for goodness-knows what reason, trashed a spring cup, and left little bits of itself in the oil. After a quick look through a 'snake cam' fiber-optic camera it looks like the valve and valve seat may have been damaged by hitting the top of the piston, and maybe the piston too (can't see clearly if that is the case). Ugh. That's one drawback of a beehive (single) spring as it lets the valve loose if it breaks.