Cam gear walking off?

EricStaab said:
Your cam assembly lube should be a paste. It should not run off the camshaft. It needs to stick to it. If it is running off or dripping it will not be there to do its job when it counts. Basically the cam paste is doing all the work before you have oil pressure, and also the first 30 sec to 1 min of running the camshaft doesn't see a lot of oil either. It is very important to use a good camshaft assembly paste. I also don't recommend any of the off the self Royal Purple products.

If anyone needs camshaft assembly past give us a call, and we can send you some. It is inexpensive. Also on break in you should have a very high ZDDP ppm content in your oil, and use a conventional oil also.
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Agreed on the zinc paste. The machine shop that rebuilt my shortblock used a paste on the lobes and journals. I think any flat tappet cam should be installed similarly. Zach also suggested Lubriplate for priming the oil pump. Jesse at JD's Diesel Performance has used Lucas additive for priming with success.
 
We also use the paste on rocker arm shafts, pushrod ends, and valve tips.

I also recommend finding someone to pre prime the oil system instead of turning the motor over to prime. Its much easier on everything.
 
For guys looking for a high ZDDP content diesel engine oil, our Power Driven 15w-40 conventional oil came back from an independent lab test/ virgin oil analysis with just over 2400 PPM zinc. This is plenty for new cam break-in and it's still balanced with detergents/additives to allow for normal street use oil change intervals 5000+ miles unlike most race oils that cannot be used for thousands of street miles between changes. We've used our conventional oil to break-in several new engines with a 100% success rate. Oil is not magic so good assembly practices should still be followed, we use assembly grease from Joe Gibbs for our cams, tappets, etc.

http://powerdrivendiesel.com/product/conventional-15w-40-boosted-with-zddp/

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For break in we like to see a conventional oil. 2400-2500 ppm and low detergent. Low detergent because detergent counteracts the ZDDP. After break in we like to see about 1800 ppm of ZDDP in your oil.
 
EricStaab said:
For break in we like to see a conventional oil. 2400-2500 ppm and low detergent. Low detergent because detergent counteracts the ZDDP. After break in we like to see about 1800 ppm of ZDDP in your oil.
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What conventionals do you know of and like that are good for break-in as well as low detergent? I want to break mine in right the first time and not wash off the zinc paste that's on my cam and tappets.
 
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jimbo486 said:
What conventionals do you know of and like that are good for break-in as well as low detergent? I want to break mine in right the first time and not wash off the zinc paste that's on my cam and tappets.
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The detergent doesn't "wash" the zinc paste off the journals, the detergent fights for real estate with the ZDDP. It was extremely difficult when developing our engine oil for the chemists to come up with a balanced street oil with the proper detergents for street use and still maintain a high zinc content. We started off wanting a 4000 PPM "street" race oil but when everything was said and done, we ended up at 2200 for the full synthetic and 2400 for the conventional because that was the upper limit for keeping the zinc and detergents balanced.

Where high detergent street oil will hurt you is if you buy off the shelf 1000-1200 PPM ZDDP diesel engine oil, then load it up with aftermarket additives (zinc additive or break-in additive) to get your desired 2400 PPM for break-in. Your net free zinc numbers will be lower than expected and in extreme cases, can cause enough imbalance to cause precipitates (solid deposits that precipitate from the chemical imbalance) to come from the mix. Break-in oil is usually changed quickly and it's usually laden with all kinds of wear metals from engine break-in so the deposits are not really an issue because the oil will be changed after a few miles.
 
I wasn't implying that any detergents would wash the zinc paste. Just concerned of any possibility of that occurring during break-in.
 
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