Crower Cams failure ?

Nono · Post by **Nono** » Wed Sep 30, 2009 8:16 am

I received this feedback from a friend who works on 3 DOHC Neons. And asked me to look some info related with. He got these 3 failures on each of them -> Crower Cams 3/4.

Car 1 ) Intake Pin got broken
Car 2 ) Intake Cam got broken
Car 3 ) Ran as DD about 3k but found on both cams lobes wear - about 1/16".

None of these cases showed Cams scratched nor any signs of lubrication problems. Actually 2 of them were running Crane 18 and 1 Crane 16 prior of Crowers.

Is crower camshaft material weak?
Appreciated any comments on this.

Thanks!!!

roysneon · Post by **roysneon** » Wed Sep 30, 2009 11:07 am

The dowel pin isn't important and probably was sheared off by not torquing the gear down all the way.

Where did the cams come from? Are they the Crowers or Brian Crower cams? When were they bought? Are you sure they were torqued down properly?

People have been running these cams for a while now, they've just recently become more popular due to their only major competition in the Neon world (Crane) going MIA.

Nono · Post by **Nono** » Wed Sep 30, 2009 11:53 pm

roysneon wrote:The dowel pin isn't important and probably was sheared off by not torquing the gear down all the way.

Where did the cams come from? Are they the Crowers or Brian Crower cams? When were they bought? Are you sure they were torqued down properly?

People have been running these cams for a while now, they've just recently become more popular due to their only major competition in the Neon world (Crane) going MIA.

Everything were propertly installed in the case of the pin. Took it to local machine shop and problem got fixed. The guy certified pin was made of sorta soft material.

These 3 issues were with CrowerCams. There were purchased directly from Crower. Theres few turbo Neons and SRT4 around here running BC but everything is ok with them.

The broken one were returned to Crower, but they certified there was a problem on the production on the cam... tiny bubbles on the material it were made of causing the problem but they (Crower) replaced in warranty.

Still waiting more info on the ones got wear down like 1/16".

infil · Post by **infil** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 1:04 am

sounds like a bunch of inclusions in a batch of castings. the pin is simply to align the gear only, it is in now way designed to hold the load of a running motor, if the gear is torqued down properly, it will not move, if the pin broke after the car was running, again the gear was loose.

as far as the lobes wearing, see above, that sounds like improper hardening, grinding or lots of inclusions in the castings.

as for breaking a cam, over/undertorquing a cam or not following the sequence.