Jeep Strokers

anyone have luck with a 505 roller cam..??i mean more than 15k miles..i have had a landry list of problems any where from cam lobes tracking, cam runout to link bars and lifter pin wearing down to nothing..i almost feel like this is one of those white van scams almost..

more pics

all lifter pins worn like this finaly one broke and lifter turned..guess what happen then..

this all happened last year..just figure to do a buyer beware in case someone is thinking on using one...btw this happen to two diferrant 505 roller cams so go figure.

Same exact thing happened? What do you have holding the cam in the block? The last picture looks like the cam moved as the lifter went up the lobe, or is the lobe just off that much as you get to the toe?

Roller cam sounds like such a great idea that is just not there yet.

What are your valve spring pressures, closed and open?
How is the 'cam walk' controlled? spring and pin? bolt? thrust plate?

When I called Zack at 505 to order some parts for my second stroker rebuild (first wiped all the lobes on the comp cam due to titan setting up the head with seat pressures high enough to launch the lifters into space) he told me NOT to use thier roller cam but to go with a solid lifter setup if i could live with it on the street. Meaning more TQ better valve control etc but have to lash them every 7500-15,000 miles. I have about 4k on my stroker now without issues. I did however order my own custom grind from Lunati directly, had it ground and nitrided to the same specs the nascar engine builders use and never looked back. My lash holds great. I also talked with some Mustang 5.0 guys that ran 505 rollers and had massive lifter failures, rollers coming completely off the tips, the link bars breaking etc. All of them warned me to steer clear of it. 505 makes good pistons, rods which are custom forged racetec parts, his cylinder head porting is Ok, I had mine cleaned up and re-ported by another guy here in Austin who since passed away, we flowed 312 on the intakes when he was done, 505 only had me at 289 cfm. Funny raising runner floors and really working the valve angles makes so much difference. Sorry to see this happen to you... especially on a 1200 cam

See this thread, it may look familiar.
http://www.jeepstrokers.com/forum/viewt ... 5&start=30

I had a solid pin to keep the cam in block and spring pressures were 135# seat and 260# open with no coil bind and correct installed heights.everthing was carefully installed and triple checked..

[quote="SilverXJ"]Same exact thing happened? What do you have holding the cam in the block? The last picture looks like the cam moved as the lifter went up the lobe, or is the lobe just off that much as you get to the toe?[/quote i had a solid pin to hold the cam in block...wear was off center due too lobes off center to lifter bores(the way it is designed for a flat tappet cam to spin the lifters) ..

What brand lifters, and are they solid or hydraulic? It would also be useful to know if they have needle bearing axels or bushed; bushed are supposedly better, especially for a solid on the street. Looks like the roller stoped turning, or weren't turning easily, and wore the cam lobe down until a point when the side/bottom of the lifter body contacted the un-worn ramp/nose of cam lobe (lifter on the left shows such witness marks). At that point, the lifter was side loaded trying to spin/rotate the lifter breaking it loose from the link bar.........Just observation from evidence presented. Needle bearing rollers do this, and that combined with a non-billet cam. This cam cost way too much for the quality of the materials chosen; for a little more you could get a custom billet, of coarse you would also have to get lifters to go with it, but in the long run you'd come out ahead.

I6FAN wrote:This cam cost way too much for the quality of the materials chosen;

I also never liked the fact that it is a flat tappet cast core ground with a roller profile.

for a little more you could get a custom billet, of coarse you would also have to get lifters to go with it, but in the long run you'd come out ahead.

Last time I checked a custom billet roller cam would be in the $1000 range. That number was from a few companies. That is just for the cam, not lifters, springs, etc.

SilverXJ wrote:

I6FAN wrote:This cam cost way too much for the quality of the materials chosen;

I also never liked the fact that it is a flat tappet cast core ground with a roller profile.

for a little more you could get a custom billet, of coarse you would also have to get lifters to go with it, but in the long run you'd come out ahead.

Last time I checked a custom billet roller cam would be in the $1000 range. That number was from a few companies. That is just for the cam, not lifters, springs, etc.

a billet cam would be the ticket for the hardness issues..however some one would have to come up with a way better link bar setup than the 505 link bar setup. all 12 morel roller lifter link bar pins wore paper thin before # 3 lifter link bar broke and lifters turned..btw there was about 10k miles on this roller setup..

I6FAN wrote:What brand lifters, and are they solid or hydraulic? It would also be useful to know if they have needle bearing axels or bushed; bushed are supposedly better, especially for a solid on the street. Looks like the roller stoped turning, or weren't turning easily, and wore the cam lobe down until a point when the side/bottom of the lifter body contacted the un-worn ramp/nose of cam lobe (lifter on the left shows such witness marks). At that point, the lifter was side loaded trying to spin/rotate the lifter breaking it loose from the link bar.........Just observation from evidence presented. Needle bearing rollers do this, and that combined with a non-billet cam. This cam cost way too much for the quality of the materials chosen; for a little more you could get a custom billet, of coarse you would also have to get lifters to go with it, but in the long run you'd come out ahead.

these lifters were Morel lifters..i believe they are the neddle bearing ones..

SilverXJ wrote:Same exact thing happened? What do you have holding the cam in the block? The last picture looks like the cam moved as the lifter went up the lobe, or is the lobe just off that much as you get to the toe?

yea same exact thing happened to both cams..505 warantyed the first cam pretty quick and blamed that on it being a early batch of cams that were not hardened enough...that the next one was at a harder rockwell hardness and was poly dyn coated to help it have more life..505 claimed many people were using these with no problem so i went back with another roller cam..