Comp Cams 918 spring failures !!!!

I am posting this here for those of you that havent seen this yet .
Theres a TON more 918 spring failures happening all over different
forums :mad: Looks like there might be a class action lawsuit in
Comps not so distant future IMO :death: Unfortunately my batch
# for my 918's are the same as other reported failures , # 49826 :mad:
Ill be pulling my valve covers to see if i have any broken 918's ...

http://www.ls1tech.com/forums/showthread.php?t=717173

http://www.ls1tech.com/forums/showthread.php?t=728938

http://www.ls1tech.com/forums/showthread.php?t=728254

Ugh. I would use the PRC Duals or Patriot Golds on most buildups anyway.

I saw that on LS1 tech today..

918's are rated to .600 lift and one guy was running a .567" cam... That's over .900" at the valve. Went over the recommended rating, IMO...

They complain about weight on the duals, but the BH's are breaking left and right.

^ I'm almost positive that springs are rated at total valve lift. If you get a .598" cam or so, you have to do the math to figure out if you will be in that 'window'.

Springs are rated at total valve lift, plus a safety factor b4 coil bind. And it's common practice to rate a cam's lift at the valve as per the factory rocker ratio, not lobe lift. It would be impossible to run a .900" lift cam on 918s, spring would be stacked solid for over a 1/4 inch.

There are springs out there for ~1" of total lift... for use in pro engines that run gigamongous cams.

918's are rated to .600 lift and one guy was running a .567" cam... That's over .900" at the valve. Went over the recommended rating, IMO...
:lol: Im sorry Bayer, but that made me laugh.

Springs are rated at total valve lift, plus a safety factor b4 coil bind. And it's common practice to rate a cam's lift at the valve as per the factory rocker ratio, not lobe lift. It would be impossible to run a .900" lift cam on 918s, spring would be stacked solid for over a 1/4 inch.

There are springs out there for ~1" of total lift... for use in pro engines that run gigamongous cams.

Theres the correct answer there.:cool:

I thought they have been having problems with them for a while now? :think:

I am probably really wrong, in which case A mod can remove my posts. Sorry to clutter this thread

You can delete them yourself.. Go in Edit...

:lol: Im sorry Bayer, but that made me laugh.



Theres the correct answer there.:cool:

I thought they have been having problems with them for a while now? :think:

That made me think.. For some reason I allways thought that if a cam was rated at .588" lets say, I allways thought it was at the cam and to take into account for the rocker ratio too... :think:

Thanx for clearing that up.

I was also corrected on LS1tech.. THank gawd I didn't get flamed for that... :o
http://www.ls1tech.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7237020&postcount=125

918's are rated to .600 lift and one guy was running a .567" cam... That's over .900" at the valve. Went over the recommended rating, IMO...


:think:

:lol: :lol: :lol:

I don't think that's quite right...

So i talked to red in Comp Cams warranty claims today about the situation with the 918's . He sent me a new set of 918's and told me word for word
"I ASSURE you that you will not have any issues with these new springs . These springs that we have on our shelves are different than the ones you have" . So my question is should i just throw on the new 918's and trust
theyre good this time around ? Red said theyll have the affected batch numbers within the next couple of weeks and what happened to make them that way . I also have not got a chance to pull my valve covers yet to check my springs . BUT their batch number is 49826 which is one that other people have been having failures with . Any advice is helpful . Thanks :)

:think:

:lol: :lol: :lol:

I don't think that's quite right...


Yeah.. I dun made a dang fool of myself on tha intraweb.. :o I should know better in the first place..

Anyway.. Yeah, as far as the 918's go.. That's BS that soo many people have been having problems with them.. It's costing people a lot to fix the damage..

Hello everyone and thanks for all the interest in our springs. I hate that that you have had trouble but hopefully we can get things straightened out and better than ever. First, a little about PAC Racing Springs. We have been producing HP springs for several decades but always behind the scenes. You may have heard of PACaloy springs and the PAC in that is us. We are the second largest spring maker in the US and use the HP spring effort as the R&D center for the OEM world. We use our Spintron, fatigue testers and metallurgical labs to develop and understand what makes the spring work. Myself and the many others in our HP area race and are deeply commited to providing the best springs for all the engines.

The beehive springs have been around for a very long time but we did help bring it to the forefront with Comp Cams several years ago. We had a great run up until about 1.5 years ago when Comp and us went our seperate ways. That's when we started PAC Racing Spring to continue to offer the same successful springs from the same place. There is so much to the material, design and processing that is very subtle with a spring that seperates a good spring from bad. The PAC-1218 is the same blue stripe 26918 that we made for years. It is produced from the best quality valve spring wire that we can find, Kobe in Japan and processed as it always has been by the same people.

The PAC-1518 is a natural upgrade that we are making for the guys that want to push the beehive further. It is made from an upgraded material that is used in NASCAR springs and nitrided. The nitrided greatly enhances the life of the spring. Lastly we enhance the surface with a version of nano-peening process. This greatly enhances the life of spring and allows the use of more aggressive cams.

We also have the PAC-1221 dual spring that is just like the old Comp 26921. I still think the beehive is the best for anything up to 0.600 lift and 0.650 needs a dual but our PAC-1518 will work up to that point.

I know you are looking to get a group buy from us but we cannot manage the logistics of that. I do believe that we offer extremely competitive pricing on these springs and really good if you get the 5 or 10 sets. We are starting our web store and that offers a 10% reduction on top of everything else right now if you go through that to order parts.

Again, thanks for the interest and are here to help with all your valvespring needs.


Chris Osborn
Valve Spring Engineer
PAC Racing Springs
1-866-799-9417
www.RacingSprings.com

***UPDATE***


Well i finally got time to swap out my crap 918's to PAC 1518's . Well
the second i pulled my valve covers i noticed the spring pictured below :eek:
My batch number was 49826 and i purchased these
918's in october 06' . Here is another victim to add to
the list of broken Comp Cams 918 beehives :cry:


http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y10/ZL1LT1/hdfk768017.jpg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y10/ZL1LT1/hdfk768013.jpg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y10/ZL1LT1/hdfk768008.jpg

you have 2 new messages :)


***UPDATE***


http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y10/ZL1LT1/hdfk768017.jpg

you have 2 new messages :)


:lol: :o

I have several sets of the PAC 1218 and 1518s in stock if anyone needs them.
Link to website is in Sig or you can find the information in the Vendor section on here.

Maybe the 918 failure threads in LT1/LT4 section should have been "stickied".

would it matter if i have the 918 beehives on my LT1? I recently pulled the valve covers to put new rockers and they all looked great. the ones i have are the yellow ones.

I just purchashed my first camaro a month ago. I have been detailing it and getting ready to install a clutch. the car has a comp cam with approx 12000 miles on it. The owner recommended that I replace the springs. Is this necessary since they only have 12k on them. I don't have the specs on the cam yet.

they got me as well

i just bought a 98 z28 what should be the first performance up grade should i do?

918 Springs are fine. The batch with the blue stripe are the bad batches. I'm running 918s on my LS1 and I've got a .595i/.605e cam in it. Several thousand miles including me beating the ever lasting piss out of the car at Road America and I'm still motoring along with no probs. Not to mention spinning it to 6,500 at the drag strip as well.

Ummm check the date of my thread when it was posted and do a search on 918 failures . I had a batch go bad myself as well as many many other people . Comp Cams even addressed the batch failures . I since then have gone with PAC 1518's .

Beehive spring are crap anyway.

Get Duals.

Beehive spring are crap anyway.
Get Duals.
LMAO
:no:

LMAO
:no:

Oh yeah!

All the LS1s in my sig had duals. You know why? Because I'd never risk running a single spring on an engine turning that much RPM and power, not to mention the fast ramp rates of modern LS1 cams.

:yes:

matter of opinion.