Cam followers what should they look like after being ran?
Turbo Mini Forums

decided it would be good to take a look at the followers since the head has to come off due to it being temporary just to get the thing going in NA form to brake it in make sure theirs nothing badly wrong

found this to me its not what id have expected to see?
some look nice and some have a polished circular bits perhaps some shit has gotten between there from the gears?
it had stock single springs on it while running and as you can see i had them coated looks as one of them is not turning ether?
i cant feel anything with my fingers or a sharp pick so atm its just polished the surface

thoughts? not really sure i dont want to trash the new cam

They look like machining marks left over,although I have never seen that before, and are probably OK, but they are so cheap is it worth chancing it ?

They look like low milage followers to me but the scratches look like there has been some dirt in there

Yes i moved to the darkside

Instagram @jdm_brett

I've seen and used far worse but what is the "coating" ?

That may be making them look a lot worse than they are.

Circular "ring" marking is quite normal because of the way they rotate by design.

Schrödinger's cat - so which one am I ???

they where brand new and had the shop "coat" them as the bores where a bit sloppy but not by much so the idea is that the coating of a few tenths would tighten them up when i assembled it i did match each to its hole in terms of fatter coating ones in the bigger holes this did work to get them nice like they should be and it looks as none of the coating has changed on the sides

as for the face on them its simply worn off under the much higher pressure but its not fully worn off yet there is still a haze or thin layer

they are low milage ones only been in this fresh build probaly seen 4-5 tanks of fuel?

there was a bit of rubbish that came out on the first oil changes to be honest i think from the sub grade gear set that was brand new but its all cleared up now

id like to get a snake camera to check the lobes to be honest i think ill run them if the cam looks perfect

they will be fine, if its a daily and N/A supermarket run about ..................... i would be looking deepley into your make and grade of oil ............... i would Highly recommend Shell Rimula
R4x 15/40 available in your country,

i would blank the oil filter housing bypass off, if your gearset as is you say,

have a look on youtube on SHELL RIMULA RX4. .. . . i now run this oil on all my motors and daily diesels and all my friends and family run it .............. and no problems whatsoever.

SHELL RIMULA R4X 15/40 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_nAchOFch8

Edited by BENROSS on 17th Oct, 2014.

Put them back in and check again when they've had more of a chance to run in. It's not normal to pull the followers out so soon so you're unlikely to recognise this particular wear pattern whether normal or not.

The sharpest looking circles aren't dirt as it's taken several revolutions to get like that and dirt would have been dislodged quicker than that. This is probably a tiny dent on the cam lobe that will correct itself with time - put another set of followers in there and they'll wear exactly the same way.

This does make me question the "run the cam in for 20min at 2k PRM" routine though - these followers are barely run in? Has anyone got pictures of badly run in cam / follows for comparison?

well what i did for first start was plugs out on cranked it over till the oil pressure gauge whould not go any higher on the scale held that for a bit then plugs in cranked a few revs the fired up with a little dissy twisting then straight up above 2krpm on the idle screw then i set the timeing for about 10-15 at 2k roughly keeped playying with the rpms for about 20 mins then reduced the idle down to a fast idle 1-1200 a few blips for fun quick idle then shut off

after that the next morning i fired it up and took the vid in my build log kicked over sweet as all seamed well so in the van it went i droped the oil and drove it up the road a few times droped it again then did some actul driveing with plenty of oil changes

as for oil the first oil it saw was penright running in oil that was the first two changes then i went to royal purple
the cam had kent lube on the loabs but im sure most of that was gone by the time it was first fired

ill give the SHELL RIMULA R4X 15/40 a good go mate where is it sold dont know if ive seen it around?

im fairly sure the circular polish marks are from the gearbox and its rubbish honstly i think i should have sent the gear set back but its used now the surfce on the flanks was terible imo

the filter housing is a non bypass one and same for the filter ive cut manny open so far checking each oil change for improvement in debris witch it was doing and the last one was spotless so as far as i can tell the engine has settled in?

like i said i think im going to try borrow a camera and do my best to inspect the lobes and if they look fine ill just run with it and check them with more run time under the belt

thought i should mention its an oil fed cam shaft so the followers get a drink right before they climb the lobe under the high pressure load

im also running a windage tray and piston cooling oil jets

Interested in what sort of detail you can get with the camera - maybe take some pictures if possible ?

It sounds like you're very thorough and cautious, I doubt you'll have problems.

properly working followers develop thoe sombrero rings on the face. That's good. What might not be so good is in the last pic, follower furthest left seems to have a shadow across the edges, this generally means the follwoers are not rotating, making a shiny strip across the centre of the follower.

well following the soon avalibilty of propa followers with correct crown and such maby ill get a set to put my mind at rest but than again this engine has only a few tanks of fuel threw it and not really had a good chance to brake in its only that id put a tempory head on it to get it going and have a blast around on the road ( i take the more or less full noise approach to "running in" full chat then chose the buterfly and go again good few long runs threw the gears and back down) anyways point is its not had that meanny hours on it yet and id just taken the head off to get a look at the oil washed bores and check things out as im putting a diffrent head on anyways so no big deal its just recon at this stage and once the turbo head is finished ill make the call for new keth clevlar followers or go with what ive got

i think ill be fine tho as i dont plan to see more than 6k rpm planing on the boost and high compression doing the work like a modern turbo Diesel

i cant for the life of me rember if the cam lobes where ground on an angle or not its a kent 274 oil drilled lobes

the cam looked micky mouse not a mark on it well as much as i could see looking at a snake camera screen threw the tappet cover and follower bore so that good news

maby those circular maks are from the drilled cam lobes? not sure but also not to worryed at this point just want the dam thing going again and boooooosting