Was reading through National Dragster last night and saw an ad from Lucas claiming that cars with Lucas racing oil/Stabilizer have had no unusual wear, if any. They seem to be pointing to the oil as the problem people are having with new camshaft failure.

My buddy lost a new comp hyd. cam in his new motor last weekend, rounded off about 5 lobes on his new motor when trying to break it in. I've heard of so many people running into this problem, is it really the oil that is causing it?

I would think the gooey cam lube you put on the lobes would have more effect on wear than engine oil,second I would look at spring pressure,the reason I say that is we wiped lobes on the first two cams we put in my sons truck,each lasted 4-5 months,first cam was .470 lift,next was .480 lift,3rd cam is .490 lift and is going on 9 months with no problems, so I'm thinking spring pressure was too much for the lower lift cams OR it was lifters,first two cams we used lifters that came with the cam, 3rd cam we went with Lunatis "microlube lifters" all is well as I knock on wood graemlins/clonk.gif

He was running a bit more spring pressure than normal, but not much. Used the break in lube, etc. regular procedure still got it.

Has something changed over the last few years in cams, lifters, oil? I never used to hear of people having that much problems. Maybe with the Internet just more people are reporting the failures now?

Yes that's what I was referring to in my 9-16 thread titled "Lucas Oil Stabilizer". Got only two responses. I was hoping someone like Bill K or Wolfplace would have add their .02. Maybe the stuff is something like GM EOS?

YES!!

The darned oils have had the high pressure heavy metal soaps, (i.e., alkali metal-stearates), removed from most if not all of them so that cats. can live longer per the EPA's mandate!!

Heck, the 85/140wt gear lube I just bought and put in my rearend and tranny was no longer teal colored, but rather just about the color of Miller Lite!! B/C the 10 year older half empty bottle of gear-lube I had and emptied that was the same brand was!!!

AND the new stuff doesn't have as strong an "EOS smell" to it anymore like the old bottle did!!!!!

I honestly figure that the synthetics and ester-based lubes do a good job IF everything is micro-polished to a mirror, but then there probably isn't enough surface friction between the lobes and the lifters to guarrantee 100 percent lifter rotation even though the parts are lubed to the point of being slick!!

Therefore, you still need a "relatively rough" mating surface betweeen the lobe and the lifter so they can "bite and spin", but then need as like in the past, extreme pressure lube like EOS type lube additives to again guarrantee part wear compatibility.....

I'm just waiting to see how long the LS-1 motor cam are going to hold up?????

pdq67

Well, I'm no oil expert, but on my last two cam installs(one failed, one didn't)I used a 50/50 mix of Lucas oil stabilizer and assembly lube on the lobes and I am sure it was better than either by itself or just plain oil as well because it stayed on the lobes better and felt slicker to the touch.

I also ran the Lucas product in the crankcase and saw no evidence of "foaming" , but Then again I wouldn't know foaming if I saw it unless there was some obvious symptom. I saw no bubbles on the dip stick and the oil pressure was fine, the same as it was before the first cam failure.

The engine is now nearing 10,000 miles since the last teardown and I'm still using the Lucas additive and Mobil 1 oil and I will continue to do so!!!

Digging up an old topic.....

Two years later, anyone have any new input?

Thanks!!

Yep

http://www.chevelles.com/forums/showthread.php?t=138630&highlight=engine+oil