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The mkiv Supra Owners Club

HKS camshaft snapped in half...


Parry_10
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I bought a stage 2 whifbitz head off a member off the forum which came with ti springs and retainers and hks 264 intake cam and 272 exhaust cams. The whole lot has done 5k miles. Cams are mint condition when the member removed them he used the correct removal sequence.

 

Now the 264 intake cam install went fine. Four new shims were needed for the exhaust cam so ordered those. A guy at the garage went to install the cam for me today using the toyota sequence he said he didnt even get to torque them he was just tightening them by hand and he felt it crack/snap. Took it out and now the camshaft is in two pieces! Anybody heard of this happening or have any explaination? Would HKS warranty this?

 

Not happy...

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He has strong fingers if he could crack one doing it up by hand, sorry but i think he is bullshitting you.

 

I had one crack in the post once.

 

I would have to agree. Sounds to me like he has tightened the cams up wrong to me as they don't just snap when doing them up finger tight. Think it would have shown up earlier if it was a faulty unit not done 5k miles and then go e snap

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He has strong fingers if he could crack one doing it up by hand, sorry but i think he is bullshitting you.

 

Have to agree here. Cast iron cam's are pretty brittle but there's no way he cracked it by hand tightening the cam caps even with a ratchet unless you tighten them up in the wrong order.

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By hand I mean not using a torque wrench using a normal ratchet, not literally by hand obviously. This guy is not stupid and is no novice. I know the bigger the cam the more likely they are to crack as more pressure etc and the stiffer springs wouldnt help. The fact is he installed in 264 intake cam just before and its fine so he must of installed the exhaust one in the same way...

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It hasnt been dropped as I installed it myself tightened it all up to measure the valve clearances and they were out so I removed them again. Is it possible if the cam was previously tightened down incorrectly at some point in its life it could weaken the cam?

 

Who knows maybe it was dropped just not by me might just contact hks and see what they say, dont expect them to do anything though.

Edited by Parry_10 (see edit history)
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tightened down incorrectly? i have always been taught to nip things down 'finger tight' before even touching things with a rachet ect. I cracked a cam cover in half on my non turbo engine once because of this reason. Prob the same thing has happened, must suck big time though!

 

Guess I will never know for sure, dont even know if I can be bothered to replace it, tempted to just sell all the supra bits I have and buy a car already done. I have no time to build it myself really only a saturday for 4-5 hours and thats if I havent got other plans.

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Guess I will never know for sure, dont even know if I can be bothered to replace it, tempted to just sell all the supra bits I have and buy a car already done. I have no time to build it myself really only a saturday for 4-5 hours and thats if I havent got other plans.

 

If you do then drop me a pm first BUT seriously mate it will all be worth it in the end! one of the best bodys on the forum (the car) and with 600+ ponies it will be a cracker! i nearly broke mine several times but glad i saw it to the end, as no one in the world has a car like mine, chin up dude.... the fun factor is building them and building it to how you want!

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It can always get worse dude, to cheer yourself up look at my invoice thread and see what im going through lol

 

I know mate read your thread not good! I wouldnt care if I had snapped it myself because I would know exactly what went on. Its the fact of not knowing exactly how it happened **** me off. I was just trying to save myself a bit of time and now this has happened. Skyline r33/r34 GTR is calling my name now more so than before. Like Rob said the fun is building the car which I have very limited time to do.

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I know mate read your thread not good! I wouldnt care if I had snapped it myself because I would know exactly what went on. Its the fact of not knowing exactly how it happened **** me off. I was just trying to save myself a bit of time and now this has happened. Skyline r33/r34 GTR is calling my name now more so than before. Like Rob said the fun is building the car which I have very limited time to do.

 

 

Chin up mate. As irritating as it is. You down the garage tomorrow mate?

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Cast cams are ULTRA brittle, if they get dropped, banged or tightened down unevenly they WILL snap. Steel billet ones won't, but they are very rare and usually race engine one offs or on true exotica, engine wise. I must have seen dozens of cams snapped by uneven tightening, and even more found broken in the post, or by being rolled or dropped off a bench. Snapped a couple myself.... Happens.

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I'm sure this happened to Jevansio as well

 

Jays snapped because the head wax warped and the cam journals were out of line/uneven. when we checked it with a flat edge we could rock the edge around 2-3mm on 1 of the journals.

 

 

I'm sorry but I think this guy is full of crap, sounds to me as if he's tightened it incorrectly and it's let go.

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Jays snapped because the head wax warped and the cam journals were out of line/uneven. when we checked it with a flat edge we could rock the edge around 2-3mm on 1 of the journals.

 

 

I'm sorry but I think this guy is full of crap, sounds to me as if he's tightened it incorrectly and it's let go.

 

I guess ill never know but he bolted the 264 intake in and that's fine.. Doesn't really make sense

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I think there was a spate of these about 4 years back when a few people had the same problem. Always seemed to be the HKS ones that snapped.

 

Back then the HKS cams were by far the most common aftermarket ones used. I've had an HKS cam and JUN cam break in the post, I use to get through a LOT of bubble wrap when posting cams!

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Back then the HKS cams were by far the most common aftermarket ones used. I've had an HKS cam and JUN cam break in the post, I use to get through a LOT of bubble wrap when posting cams!

 

Ah yes, that was Wes's cam, I remember. As you say, HKS cams were by far the most common cam supplier for the aftermarket on the 2JZ. Breakage really IS very common across all makes. Think of sending a Ming vase by courier, that's the sort of protection cast cams need. Ideally a wooden box that can be lifted off the floor at both ends on blocks, and stood on without deflecting very much at all, with the cam bubble wrapped inside. PITA to send by post I sympathise Nic!. People see a piece of inch or so thick metal rod and they think "unbreakable". Think of them as made of glass and you don't go far wrong :)

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