Which valve springs would you use?

Engine is ready to finally put back together. I have the 178/208 Hamilton cam degree’d and ready to go. I have a set of Hamilton 165 conical valve springs and a set of 60lb springs and PDD 10° retainers, which would you install? Is there any risk of unacceptable wear from the Hamilton’s higher spring rate? The engine is for my Farm truck/backup tow rig, probably keep the rpm’s to 3200 and under with a S300g to start (maybe small twins in the future if I get a wild hair). I’m only aiming for about 400 to maybe 450 engine HP. And does anyone know what Hamilton wants to see as far as how much Zinc is in the oil? I do oil analysis’ on everything here so I’ll be able to keep the zinc exactly where it needs to be. Thanks

The 178 cam is great. I had the same goals for my truck. I was going with a bigger cam in my head but when i talke with zack he suggested the 178. He also said use the 24 valve tappets and 1 bottle of zinc is good for oil changes
.

Why are people having to run additives?
Why can't manufacturers build their stuff around what's available?
Why not have a better cam material, say billet, or a better surface hardening?

Why is it up to the consumer to make the designer's crap work?

Mark.

Mark Nixon said:

Why are people having to run additives?
Why can't manufacturers build their stuff around what's available?
Why not have a better cam material, say billet, or a better surface hardening?

Why is it up to the consumer to make the designer's work?

Mark.

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Part of the issue tho is oil use to have more zinc in it, now it doesn’t. Zinc adds shear strength, and that is what a flat tappet cam needs to keep from killing the lobs. Add in ridiculously high spring pressure and the issue is magnified.
Roller lifters, high zinc oil, lighter spring pressure all help.

In regards to which springs, I’d run the 60lb springs.

I ran synthetic oil alone and wiped a cam lobe on mine. only had his mild street cam and 110# springs. Problem is as last poster said, removal of zinc and some other high-pressure wear metals to avoid catalytic converter damage. Essentially, the EPA threw a wrench in your old diesel (planned obsolescence).
flat tappet motors with high spring rates, higher lift put more pressure on the tappet and need that additive to prevent wear. The stock springs and cam can run just fine on the normal oils.
I got an email back from Zach ages ago about ZDDP content and went back to look, they recommend at least 1750 ppm ZDDP. I have used lucas and cam shield with good results.

bracker8040 said:

Part of the issue tho is oil use to have more zinc in it, now it doesn’t. Zinc adds shear strength, and that is what a flat tappet cam needs to keep from killing the lobs. Add in ridiculously high spring pressure and the issue is magnified.
Roller lifters, high zinc oil, lighter spring pressure all help.

In regards to which springs, I’d run the 60lb springs.

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You kinda' missed my point.
Point is, the lubricant should not have to carry the design issues soft metals create.
My point is made, in that by removing the zinc, cams go flat, unless it's made of stronger material and/or surface hardness.

Another thing, lifters do NOT contact the whole profile of the cam lobe, rather both are designed in such a way as to rotate the lifter, not just scrub the whole foot.
That alone should tell you it's more about the actual hardness of the material, than the lubricity of the oil.

Yes, excessive spring pressure may play a notable role, but then, cam manufacturers selling cams they KNOW will see excessive loads need to consider better, stronger materials towards that market.

Mark.

Mark Nixon said:

You kinda' missed my point.
Point is, the lubricant should not have to carry the design issues soft metals create.
My point is made, in that by removing the zinc, cams go flat, unless it's made of stronger material and/or surface hardness.

Another thing, lifters do NOT contact the whole profile of the cam lobe, rather both are designed in such a way as to rotate the lifter, not just scrub the whole foot.
That alone should tell you it's more about the actual hardness of the material, than the lubricity of the oil.

Yes, excessive spring pressure may play a notable role, but then, cam manufacturers selling cams they KNOW will see excessive loads need to consider better, stronger materials towards that market.

Mark.

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I agree with you that better material should be used, but look at it this way. Do you really think that an aftermarket parts supplier that’s using steel made in China, and can tell their customers that they have to run zinc to keep the parts alive, and therefore sell “cheap” parts at a healthy markup, and have no liability if the customer doesn’t follow those instructions and the parts fail, why would they bother changing anything?
This is one of the things that aggravates me about a lot of the diesel aftermarket. The quality of so many parts and materials is pitiful.

We're 100% on the same page, then.
Wasn't trying to be a jerk, just ticks me off that quality has to suffer, along with customer satisfaction, over what amounts to saving pennies on the dollar, in a mass market scenario.

I tear apart damaged engines for a living and I see destroyed 6.7s over stupid stuff like seats falling out and rod bolts backing off.
Both are very real and prevalent problems, with, I feel, tuners and turbos exacerbating the issue.

Mark.

I like diesels, and I like diesel performance, but a lot of the diesel performance industry (parts quality, reliability, etc) is almost laughable.
Look at Hot Rod Magazines Drag Week versus UCC for example.
The cars that compete in that event race at 5 different tracks, on 5 different days, have to DRIVE between events, (often close to 1,000 miles of street driving, so that means they have to be street legal) carrying ALL their tools, tires, etc WITH THE COMPETING VEHICLE.
The cars at the top of that event AVERAGE in the low 6 second range at over 200 mph in the 1/4 mile for the week!
The UCC trucks ARE heavier, but they’re 50% slower, probably couldn’t survive a 50 miles street drive without some sort of catastrophic failure, and definitely couldn’t carry all their support equipment.
The diesel performance world is way behind the gas world, sadly, in terms of reliability, versatility, and raw performance.
Anyway, that’s my rant. I’ll quit mucking up this this thread with it. LOL

Out of the two options the 60lbs shimmed would be my choice with that cam. Also on the oil topic I have found that the engines I pull apart that don’t run additional zinc and a friction reducer have an obvious amount of wear in comparison.

Everyone complains about adding zinc and adding fuel lube in mechanical pumps . Added zinc/lube Is insurance for your engine.

bracker8040 said:

I like diesels, and I like diesel performance, but a lot of the diesel performance industry (parts quality, reliability, etc) is almost laughable.

Look at Hot Rod Magazines Drag Week versus UCC for example.

The cars that compete in that event race at 5 different tracks, on 5 different days, have to DRIVE between events, (often close to 1,000 miles of street driving, so that means they have to be street legal) carrying ALL their tools, tires, etc WITH THE COMPETING VEHICLE.

The cars at the top of that event AVERAGE in the low 6 second range at over 200 mph in the 1/4 mile for the week!

The UCC trucks ARE heavier, but they’re 50% slower, probably couldn’t survive a 50 miles street drive without some sort of catastrophic failure, and definitely couldn’t carry all their support equipment.

The diesel performance world is way behind the gas world, sadly, in terms of reliability, versatility, and raw performance.

Anyway, that’s my rant. I’ll quit mucking up this this thread with it. LOL

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One went 5.99 this year. Pretty crazy.

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Mark Nixon said:

You kinda' missed my point.
Point is, the lubricant should not have to carry the design issues soft metals create.
My point is made, in that by removing the zinc, cams go flat, unless it's made of stronger material and/or surface hardness.

Another thing, lifters do NOT contact the whole profile of the cam lobe, rather both are designed in such a way as to rotate the lifter, not just scrub the whole foot.
That alone should tell you it's more about the actual hardness of the material, than the lubricity of the oil.

Yes, excessive spring pressure may play a notable role, but then, cam manufacturers selling cams they KNOW will see excessive loads need to consider better, stronger materials towards that market.

Mark.

Click to expand...

On the Cummins flat tappet cams, they are flat. Flat lobes carry more load than tapered lobes. The lobe to tappet offset gives a bit of rotation not taper. We offer a steel cam that is made in the USA, and it still needs zinc..... We sell chillcast ductile cams not to save a buck but because most people will not go through the expense of installing bushings in the block to be able to run steel cams. Cummins, to save a few bucks decided not to put bushings in all seven cam bearings, something that they have fixed on the 2019 HO engines. Flat tappet cams although they open faster at lower lifts than roller cams are on their way out. With low zinc, low additive package oils, rollers are the only option moving forward. I have offered higher end steel cams in the past and they just did not sell. Unfortunately, customers vote with their dollars which products are viable.


A side note, on every block we sell, we only offer 7 cam bearings. Steel cams, with steel tappets would be the only things we sell if it was my choice. My 2014 at 7500miles got torn down for research. It was already wiping a lobe. Short duration and small diameter cams have wear issues..... Adding duration increases the radius at the nose of the cam and can support more pressure due to having more area in contact with the tappet across the nose. The same with larger diameter cams, they GREATLY increase the nose radius. THe issue is that there is not much room to go much larger in the block. Our 62mm cams are pushing it.

so how do the original cams run for 500k without wiping? what are you doing different?

I'm marking this for info. I'm in the same boat with the same cam and spring options.

I would say the original cams durability is due to spring rates and/or lobe design. Both being tame and being designed for longevity/emissions rather than performance. I will mention that my stock ~250,000 mile cam in an all stock 12v motor has pitting on a few lobes and lifters with only 250,000 miles. Stock cams are not inspected very often and I suspect that many have similar wear, however most people just don't notice cause they run their truck until it blows or is traded.

Install a mechanical oil temp gauge & get your oil hot enough to boil off any condensation/moisture.

I've pulled plenty a stock cam with no lobe pitting.

ofelas said:

Install a mechanical oil temp gauge & get your oil hot enough to boil off any condensation/moisture.

I've pulled plenty a stock cam with no lobe pitting.

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And the one I pulled out of the short block I built was pitted to hell.

I agree about short cycle driving. That will kill any engine prematurely.

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Well I ended up changing my plans for valve springs. After PDD’s video where they were talking about coil bind and X number of pounds at X lift height I figured I would check that stuff since it was easy to do and it was something I had never thought about before. I measured my installed height for both the 60 pounders and the Hamilton springs I have and then checked them both. My 60’s were way closer to coil bind than I was really comfortable with, and for whatever reason my Hamilton springs fell about .030” shorter than their minimum installed height so the pressure was way higher than I was ok with. So I ordered some of the PDD street conical. They measured 170 on the seat and 320 at full lift on the exhaust and were not close to being coil bound. So I swapped them in last night.

I think a common problem is that a lot of people who buy camshafts don’t understand valve springs. I certainly didn’t, I relied on what has been done, current technology, and what worked for others. Now technology has progressed, and outdated what I thought were the best valve springs for my setup.

I’d venture to say that most aftermarket camshaft failings in our cummins engines, are due to improper valve spring setup and the sudden shift away from zinc in all oils. Those two things alone are at the root of the problem. My engine in Ol’ Blue was built in 2013/2014. I used the correct additives for the oil from day one, and bought the standard for valve springs and a 200/220, but looking at it now, they are definitely very close to coil bind with a 200/220 camshaft. (I had issues with factory valve seals getting smashed due to the amount of lift, beehive springs were being compressed quite a fair amount) Some of the evidence is in the updated cam retainer. I had it apart for a timing case seal. It is already seeing some slight wear, less than 10,000 miles.

I’ll add that PDD’s video really helped me understand valve springs further, for visual learners like me, that video was the ticket. Only problem now is I need different springs to keep my cam retainer from taking a beating.


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Valve spring coil bind and retainer to guide clearance has been something I dealt with for years on performance gas engines, even through my cam isn't very big I checked those things when I installed the Big Stick and 60# springs.