That lack of spin on #3 is definately a problem. Having a decent bit of experience with metallurgy, I can tell you that if the cam was not tempered properly, or not tempered at all after hardening, you'll end up with some glass hard metal. Temper at too high a temp, and the metal will be too soft. Too low a temp, too hard. No temper, glass hard and brittle. When you have a cam thats too hard, your lifters will start to wear, and then you'll end up wiping both lifter and lobe. I think alot of cam manufacturers are tempering to too low of a hardness which doesnt match the hardness of the lifters, and then you have lifters wiping lobes out. Believe it or not, changing your tempering temperature by just 20 degrees can have a pretty drastic effect on the metal, (especialy the quenching process) and its easy for guys, mass producing cams, to lose a little control over their temps. Its hard to get an even temper around the whole lobe, given the fact that the nose of the lobe itself will be at a higher temperature than the base circle of the lobe during the process. The base of the lobe is right there at the main core of the bar, which is subject to more heat transfer then the tip of the lobe. The nose of the lobe has more surface area to radiate heat, but air is a lousy conductor. I dont know if the cam guys are measuring temper/hardness at the base, the nose, or getting an average number, or bothering with it at all. They probably use induction hardening, which is more prone to the condition I stated above. Air hardening or flame hardening while spinning the cam would probably be the way to go.
Basically, if the hardness of the lobe isnt almost identical to the hardness of the lifter base, you'll more than likely see problems with wear. You need to find a cam maker with very strict quality control practices.
Then when the cam gets ground, if they dont do it right, the temper will get all screwed up. Using a fine stone to do roughing work, not enough coolant, overly aggresive grinding, etc can mess things up in a hurry.
The break in process is a tempering procedure in itself, so follow the process to a T.
Another issue comes from having worn out lifter bores. If its bad enough, the lifter can **** and drive the leading edge of the lifter into the lobe, which is bad for obvious reasons.
You should use a good moly lube for break in as well.
Always use new lifters. Ive seen guys try to re-use them, which I cant understand.
Sometimes you'll have a shave of bearing material hanging off a cam bearing from a crappy bearing install job, and when you install the new cam, you can actually catch this shaving and push it into the bearing. There goes that bearing. Best to look at the bearings very closely before installing it, and take your time. You need a good long cam insertion tool (stop laughing! :biggrin: ) so you can get enough leverage on it to balance it and avoid ramming it into the edge of the bearings. Its easy to smash the edge of every single bearing as you drive it in.
I will take two 
