That looks alot better than mine. Mine was copper all around when I did the first cam swap and it's still going strong today. There was no reason for you to rebuild your motor.

 

Both true. Roller cams need no break-in (like flat tapped cams do), but it is good to give it the RPMs, anyway, for good oil splash.


As accessible as the front cam bearing is, a person could replace it, if they wanted to. All cam bearings cannot be replaced with the engine in the car.

 

My front cam bearing had some wear on it. Put the new cam in anyways with no problems. Did put an EWP on though, to take some load off that bearing.

 

My front cam bearing looked quite worn also, I slapped a new front bearing in and proceeded with the cam swap. No problems yet.

 

so what color is the bearing if it's worn? silver or copper

no im kinda confused weather mine's fine or worn lol

 

I haven't seen one myself but from reading around..copper. The silver wears down and its copper under I guess...

 

The silver top layer is soft and lets particles imbed. The copper layer is a lot tougher and wont imbed particles, but it helps get the heat out of the bearing. Oil pressure is key - As long as you got good oil pressure, you might be OK, but that wear came from metal to metal contact on startup probably, and it will only get worse. You put a new cam in there and maybe scratch it up a little more from the sharp edges, then everything gets a little worse.

 

I hate to sound nit-picky, but I think it is an important distinction: bearing failures are due to a lack of oil supply. Pressure is a marker for flow, but not the same thing. I once read that the load on the oil film is on the order of 10,000psi (for the mains). Obviously, 60 or 70psi of oil pressure is not what is keeping the parts for metal to metal contact (even for the cam) but it is the oil "wedge" created by the movement of the journals relative to each other. There are better diagrams, but this should suffice:



Rich

 

i might be stating this wrong but i think that the cam bearing supply gallery is where the oil pressure is read from because its closest to the pump supply. if the oil pressure drops in this gallery it should effect oil pressure to the rest of the engine. my cam bearing looked similar to the picture above and i went ahed with the swap. the oil pressure droped about 5 psi afterwards. it got worse the more i drove it and within 3000 miles had spun two rods and a main.

 

Ok, maybe I was too general. However, if you are not getting the oil to the bearings, there won't be much chance to have an oil wedge. Pressure may not be the ultimate way to judge what you have, but there aren't too many other indicators available to use.

Oh, yeah...I trashed a rod bearing, but my pressure was still ok. ...lost that darn wedge...

 

I would guess pressure at the back by the pump is going to be more than pressure all the way at the front.