OneStopRestoration's Special Orange 69 Chevelle 300 Deluxe Coupe

[OneStopRestoration]

Dave, Thats a great question. Ive been doing body panel alignment, and I had to find another drivers door because of how badly damaged the original door was. More to come!

The one thing that has been keeping me busy is i helped my dad start a 396 solid lifter motor. We have done dozens of motors over the years. Were extremely careful about how we restore, check and assemble our engines. We were warned about 3 weeks ago that several other folks doing 396 and 427 engines are wiping out cams, specifically COMP during break. We kinda shrugged the idea off, but ultimately after only 15mins of run time we wiped our cam as well. The situation is enough to make ya sick. In this case the motor was on a run stand.

The ultimate frustration is my 66 has the same cam/lifters, as well as dads 68 l78. Both cars are completely finished, and yes we plan to rip them both completely out of the cars and apart to remove the cams and try something new.

I must have spoken to about a dozen different smaller cam companys this past week. I even spent some time on the phone with Comp. I was rather shocked at the things i learned from the Comp tech. I learned enough to know a Comp cam will not go into another one of my motors. The warranty guys hung up on me when i expressed my displeasure for my time and money i spent. The comical thing was the warranty guy at comp was disappointed in me for not trying to start the other two motors.

I hope all of you on this site read this and it gives you good food for thought when selecting parts for your cars/restorations.

[napa68]

Eric Jackson of Vintage Musclecar Parts had a batch of cams ground by Bullet Cams. I bought (and installed) one of those cams in the original L78 for my Camaro. I have not started the engine mind you.

On a different note, I have installed some Comp cams in the last few years with good results (fingers crossed). Having said that, I am using EDM lifters in those installations.

Perhaps Eric will see the thread and chime in. I believe he chose Bullet out of the same concern and frustration you have.

Tim

[Too Many Projects]

Sorry you had to experience the cam issue first hand, but there has been a lot of talk about this subject and specifically Comp products around the www for some time now. And, yes, if you haven't been doing any research/reading on the subject, you didn't see it. Seems most everything coming out of China is not being hardened to specs and are junk, big surprise there. My engine builder tries very hard to get all his customers to only install roller cam conversions now.