Adjusters and Cam

Keith, I'm certain that the adjusters are not loosening before they are breaking. If you go back to my post from Saturday night, I was in the process of lashing the valves, and had not run the engine, when the first adjuster popped and broke. That one for sure had no chance to loosen up. I think you are correct that this may be a heat treat issue. I'd be happy to speak with Larry at T&D if you'd like.

It may also be that I can just tighten the adjusters a little less to put less stress on them, and they might be OK. I've been tightening them like a normal FE wedge adjuster, but maybe less torque on the nut is called for. FYI I checked the torque on some of the nuts after the first adjuster broke, and it was 13-14 ft-lbs. This much torque may not be required to keep the adjusters tight.

Regarding the cam, the long duration at .050" can be a little deceiving on an SOHC, due to the rocker ratio. For example, with a standard wedge FE you have a 1.76:1 rocker ratio, so at .050" lobe lift the gross valve lift is .088". On a cammer the rocker ratio is more like 1.3:1, so at .050" lobe lift the gross valve lift is only .065". In order to really compare the SOHC profiles at the valve with a wedge FE cam, you have to look at the duration at .068" lobe lift for the SOHC. If you do that, my 298 @ .050" SOHC cam looks more like a 278 @ .050" wedge cam.

This particular issue was pretty confusing to me at first, and in order to fully understand it I went out and bought one of those Cam Analyzer stands made by Performance Trends. Now, rather than looking at the spec card numbers, I run both the wedge cams and the SOHC cams on my Cam Analyzer stand, and just compare the graphs of the cam profiles at the valve with that program. Using this approach the cams in this SOHC look pretty much the same as the cams I've used in some of my 700-750 HP wedge engines. Not that this is the ideal cam for this engine; it may not be. In fact, I have a 290 @ .050 set of cams waiting in the wings to try. But there is a fairly limited selection of cams available. I think Comp only has four lobe profiles. If you start getting into these engines a little more, you might want to talk to Comp about making a few more profiles available.

Jay Brown
1968 Shelby GT 500 Convertible, 492" 667 HP FE
1969 R code Mach 1, 490" supercharged FE, 9.35 @ 151.20, 2007 Drag Week Runner Up, Power Adder Big Block
2005 Ford GT, 2006 Drag Week Winner, 12.0 Daily Driver
1969 Ford Galaxie XL, 460 (Ho Hum....)
1964 Ford Galaxie 500, 510" SOHC