The "econo roller" cam I installed during the rebuild shown on this web site has failed with less than 7000 miles on it. I discovered it early during an oil change prompted by a drop in oil pressure. Here is my latest "ChiaPlug" oil drain plug.
Basically 8 of the 12 cam lobes had "wiped". This is never supposed to happen to a roller cam. I've seen roller cams where a lifter/roller failed and jammed the mechanism causing the cam to break or maybe scratch a cam lobe badly but never a wiped lobe. Usually what happens is a piston rod breaks and strikes the cam and breaks it. These failures all happen at extremely high RPMs. Below are some pictures of the failed cam.
There have been numerous failures of this cam recently. See the archives of www.gnttype.org and www.turbobuick.com if you really want to hear/read some ugly ranting and raving. Myself, I am upset but I'm not big enough to take on the original cam manufacturer and neither are the two Buick aftermarket vendors who resold the cams in kits. It will cost me well over $1000.00 in parts and machine work to repair my motor. I do all the mechanic work myself so I at least save the $1800.00 to $2200.00 labor involved in a total engine rebuild.
If you call the cam company, they point their fingers at the vendors and say, "We told them there might be a problem." This is the most unbelievable part of the story. The two vendors are a little more reputable than that. I have been doing business with both for several years. In my opinion, neither of them would ever knowingly offer a product that would cause this kind of damage. I will continue doing business with both of them.
Actually, the vendor I bought my kit from has sold his business and now works with the buyer (a larger performance parts company). They have incorporated his company's product line into their business. He is not in the cam business any longer (doh!). Some of the things that have been said in the heat of the moment by people with failures have been misdirected and pretty out of line.
The other vendor is actually handling the return/support of getting my cam swapped out for a billet roller cam. Even though he didn't sell it to me I am getting the same "deal" that he can offer his other customers. It's not much of a deal as far as the money goes when you consider the thousands involved in a rebuild. Nevertheless, it is probably as good as is reasonable for a small vendor to offer when faced with a problem like this.
The cam manufacturer is apparently giving credit for the original price of the cam, which was sold retail for around $150.00. The whole kit included lifters, pushrods, etc. A whole lot more money. So, we, the customers are getting a comparable break on the replacement billet cam and timing chain kit. This basically covers the cost of machining the billet cam to mount a Buick timing chain. That was one of the cost savings of the "econo roller" cam. The cast cams would use a stock style timing chain. The billet cams don't come this way. The best solution for them is to modify them to use a Buick V8 timing chain.
The cam manufacturer eats the cost of the original cam, the vendor takes the heat for the failure, deals with the customers, and eats all the incidental costs of shipping, handling, coordinating the machining (I'm assuming the credit of the cam covers the actual machining costs), phone support, etc. The customers eat thousands of dollars in parts and labor. Plus, they have to do without their car for a month or so. I think the manufacturer gets off easy here and the customer gets screwed. The vendor in the middle doesn't do too well either.
I am a design engineer. My own speculation on how this came about is as follows. The Buick vendors see that the big cam companies have been offering "econo roller" cams for Chevys and Fords for several years. BTW, an "econo roller" is a cast cam as opposed to a forged billet cam. Shoot, GM has been using a cast roller cam in the 3800 motor for a long time too. This isn't new, cutting edge technology. Anyway, the vendors tell the marketing and sales guys of the cam company that they can sell a _lot_ of roller cams if they can get the price down to x dollars. This goes on for a couple of years. Pressure mounts on the cam marketing guys to increase sales. They demand a new Buick "econo roller" product from their engineering department. Well, there is a complication. The numbers aren't there. The only people buying these cams are guys running Grand Nationals and other turbo Regals, a very small market. The engineering group says they can't set up to produce the cast "austenetic hardened" cams like what GM uses for such a small market. Anyway, the vendors keep asking, the marketing guys keep demanding and finally an engineer who is either new/incompetent and just plain unethical says, "Hey, how about we try this?" The marketing guys say, "Great!" Nobody in the engineering group digs in and points out that it won't work.
I don't know why this happened but in today's politically correct engineering world, it does happen. I saw the Challenger blow up. I know it happens. I think the pictures below illustrate that the metal used for this cam just wasn't hard enough to handle the stresses. There is no excuse I can think of for this kind of thing. It is too easy to calculate the basic forces involved. Any competent mechanical engineer and even a few electrical and civil engineers could do it. For that matter, it doesn't really take an engineer. I've known technicians and machinists who could figure this out. It does take knowledge of the materials used so a customer can't check it himself. The cam company makes these things and you have to rely on their [sic] expertise.