Cam Scoring

[M3PO]

Hey guys, my S50 was getting water into Cyl #3 which I now believe to be a cracked head. When removing the head, I pulled the cams out and the exhaust cam has scoring on three bearing surfaces. The cam tray and caps also have scoring. Is this normal or are the cam, tray, and caps trash?

[M3PO]

I should mention that this motor only has 120K and the intake cam was pristine.

[mjweimer]

Hopefully 328ijunkie will chime in on this since he has posted a lot of info on cams in the past.

I believe that he stated the exhaust cams generally show much more wear than the intake cams and that some scoring is normal - I do not have enough experience to tell whether this is normal or not - I will be interested in the outcome since I am still shopping for used S52 cams for my project.

I hope the news is good in your case!

[M3PO]

Hopefully 328ijunkie will chime in on this since he has posted a lot of info on cams in the past.

I believe that he stated the exhaust cams generally show much more wear than the intake cams and that some scoring is normal - I do not have enough experience to tell whether this is normal or not - I will be interested in the outcome since I am still shopping for used S52 cams for my project.

I hope the news is good in your case!

These are S50 cams but they will be for sale as I am putting in aftermarket cams in my new head. Let me know if you are interested.

[M3PO]

The other thing that I would like to know is if I can swap my lifters into another cam tray without any issues? I have a spare set of cam trays and caps that are in much better shape.

[M3PO]

No one?

[sublimation]

Personally, I wouldn't run them, but other people may differ on opinion.

[AndrewBird]

I'm not an expert, but that looks awful. The light score on each side of the big line is probably fine, but the groove down the middle is not good. I would not re-use that cam.

[328ijunkie]

groove down the middle is slightly alarming. Im running a worse than that set in my track car with no issues...YMMV.
I would install those myself in any of my cars, not a customer car though... Light scoring is normal, >.5mm grove not great.

[M3PO]

The cam tray also has pretty bad scoring so I shouldn't use that either right? I have an extra cam tray and caps but no extra lifters. Can I put my lifters in the extra cam tray and be okay?

[sweet3]

Its tough to actually tell by a picture. However, none of it looks like trash. Does your finger nail get caught on the scratch?
Any good machine shop can polish them and they should be good to go.
The cam trays and cam caps can also be polished. I would at least ask a machine shop before you spend money on unnecessary items.
The lifters should also be interchangeable.