BROKEN KEYWAY ON BILLET CAM

[BEATAV8]

If you plan on using the Danny Bee type setup I'd suggest you go with at 75 ft lbs on the bolt and cross your fingers. I ended up designing some different components and having them fabricated in our machine shop to increase the contact surface are between gear face and the cam nose.

Neal

Yep that contact area makes perfect sense.

 

[turbofabricator]

Question..........have you verified cam lobe to rod bolt clearance?

 

[TURBOELKY]

Question..........have you verified cam lobe to rod bolt clearance?

I know I have. Had to take quite a bit of material off the rods, all of them.

 

[turbofabricator]

Remember, the cam rocks back and forth at idle enough to cause havoc. With any slop in the chain, contact may be happening when idling. Something to consider. Maybe, not.

 

[TURBOELKY]

We're you guys running a solid lifter when the cam keyway sheered? Or really high valve spring pressure?

 

[87GN_Bart]

[QI UOTE="TURBOELKY, post: 3724807, member: 17339"]We're you guys running a solid lifter when the cam keyway sheered? Or really high valve spring pressure?[/QUOTE]

I was running solid lifters with a billet hyd cam.

 

[TURBOELKY]

If Neil was running solid lifters too, my concerns are alleviated.

 

[750H.P.V6]

If Neil was running solid lifters too, my concerns are alleviated.

Jeremy,

The Danny Bee design is marginal. If the stack up is correct and the bolt torque is in the range of 70 - 75 ft lbs you should be ok but there is no guarantee. I can share a bunch of pictures with you if you like.

Neal

 

[TURBOELKY]

Jeremy,

The Danny Bee design is marginal. If the stack up is correct and the bolt torque is in the range of 70 - 75 ft lbs you should be ok but there is no guarantee. I can share a bunch of pictures with you if you like.

Neal

Yeah send them over. With a solid lifter though we know how much room there is for error in adjustment.

 

[TURBOELKY]

If the keyway is being sheered off, there's a problem somewhere. You guys can break a solid piece of billet steel if left alone with it too long...

 

[BEATAV8]

I was looking at my old progear timing set. No chamfer on the cam bore in the old progear sprocket

 

[750H.P.V6]

I was looking at my old progear timing set. No chamfer on the cam bore in the old progear sprocket

I ended up machining the back of the Rollmaster timing gear to eliminate the chamfer and increase the contact area. This allowed me to correct the misalignment between the top and bottom timing gear I was seeing also.

Neal

 

[BobbyBuick]

i machined the cam to install a straight cut key hardened .there is not much there the way the beveled key is but really as i said in the other thread if assembled correctly the key just is there .THE CRUSH IS WHAT HOLDS IT TOGETHER

 

[750H.P.V6]

i machined the cam to install a straight cut key hardened .there is not much there the way the beveled key is but really as i said in the other thread if assembled correctly the key just is there .THE CRUSH IS WHAT HOLDS IT TOGETHER

The bolt torque and the contact surface area are what keep the detail parts from working loose. The Webber set up is better as it has more contact surface to begin with.

Neal

 

[TURBOELKY]

I'll weld the motherfucker together if I have to...

 

[750H.P.V6]

Originally I was just going to send these pics to Jeremy but I thought they might benefit others. I hope they serve to clarify some of the comments I've made in this thread.

Here is a pic of what I originally found when I removed the timing cover after my car stopped running and coasted to the side of the road.

 

[750H.P.V6]

You'll notice the spacer is missing from between the distributor gear and the timing gear. Here are several more pics during disassembly.

 

[750H.P.V6]

Based on the fretting present on the nose of the cam and the timing gear it's fair to say there wasn't adequate clamp load on the detail parts. The bolt had been torqued at 60 ft lbs with red loctite and was still in place. When I looked at the back of the timing gear I became concerned about a serious lack of contact area between the timing gear and cam nose.

 

[750H.P.V6]

Since the cam nose had already been cut down for the Danny Bee set up and was otherwise undamaged except the woodruff key slot being a bit buggered up I had to come up with a solution to fix the problem. I ended up machining the back off the timing gear to remove the chamfer and increase contact area and had a flange machined to fit the nose of the cam.

 

[750H.P.V6]

Here is a pic of the finished product. I decided to up the torque value on the bolt also even though 75 ft lbs seems high to me. The results have been good so far (fingers crossed.)