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Weird?

If the cam will turn freely by hand without finger followers or timing chains installed then you should be good. If there is any binding, then what ever is binding will have little to no oil film while running and will eventually score and seize.

BTW, swapping over cam caps from another head is tricky at best. The cam bore centerline in the head is not necessarily level with the top surface of the head (parting line). This means that the cam cap does not necessarily contain exactly one half of the bore. If it's even off by 0.05mm then will pretty much get binding. You might be able to get away by trying several cam caps and using plastigage to check clearance. It's subjective but it's the best for someone without access to bore gages.

For troubleshooting, you can also try moving cams from int. to exh. or vice-versa temporarily just as a process of elimination.
 
How freely do you consider free. They require a good amount of effort to move in there and these are both cams without replaced cam caps. All these cam caps are from original positions. The rear head is a different story at this point. I have to swap over at least 2 cam caps and I'm thinking about plastiguaging them. What kind of clearances am I looking for while doing this? I just want to get this baby running correctly and I'm willing to do what is necessary to get it there.
 
DyComet said:
Well after some more exploring I believe I found my problem. In my effort to find why the cams wouldn't spin I overlooked the most important detail, the cams themselves. Where the cam sits on the head there were some very small rough spots on the cams. After turning the cams in the head I found that it became difficult to turn the cam even with the cam caps just barely on. I took some 800 and 1000 grit sandpaper and carefully worked out the rough spots in the cams. Now with the cams installed and cam caps at full torque I am able to rotate the cams. The front exhaust cam is a little harder to turn than the rest but it spins none the less. Is this going to present a problem for me? Take note, that I couldn't spin any of the cams by hand after removal of the timing chains. I polished the journals in the head to the best of my ability and was able to get them very clean. The cams are a bit more difficult to completely clean up. If I get them all to a point where I can rotate them by hand should I be ok to put the engine back together? Also, the cams don't exactly spin easily in there, it can be done with one hand but there is resistance which I think is normal but I would like to confirm. Thank you everyone for your help.
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Honestly there is normally not a whole lot of resistance on the cams with the caps torqued on and no timing components added. If you've gotten this far you should continue until they turn easily by hand.
What could be wrong with the old cam journal surfaces that could cause that? Are they rusted? Did you verify that your SVT Cam bearing surfaces were the same diameter as the 3L escape cam bearing surfaces; the OD diameter of the cams themselves at the bearing surfaces is what I mean.
 
I'll check the two different cam sizes today but I don't get why they won't turn easily. The head surfaces, cam surfaces, and cam cap surfaces have been polished down extremely well to a point where there are no rough spots or anything of the sort. When torqued down to spec it still has some resistance in there while spinning. I just don't get why this could be happening.
 
The 3L cams spin perfectly when torqued down. I now know that this is a cam problem. Could I take my 3L cams and my SVT cams to a machine shop and tell them to machine down the SVT cams to exactly where the 3L cams are or is machining cams not possible?
 
Yep, so a note to myself. Even when you're positive you have the cam caps on right, check it again. I found two of the cams caps were on wrong cams. I now have all cams spinning easily with one hand. They don't glide like butter but it is a minimal effort movement. Here's my new issue, one of the cams spins much easier than the rest. Like I can give this cam a fling and it will continue to spin a little after I remove my hand. Since the rest of the cams don't exactly move this easy I'm a bit worried. Am I being paranoid and should I just forget about it or is this something that I should look into further?
 
Ok, so here's the update to the people who are following this thread. Th rear head is going to get replaced. I can't find a cam cap that fits the head to my liking so I'm just going to pull it and replace it. The front head works fine and the crank easily turns with everything timed up. Let this be a lesson learned the hard way.
 
DyComet said:
Ok, so here's the update to the people who are following this thread. Th rear head is going to get replaced. I can't find a cam cap that fits the head to my liking so I'm just going to pull it and replace it. The front head works fine and the crank easily turns with everything timed up. Let this be a lesson learned the hard way.
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You can do that if you want to. Or you can use plastigage and check the clearances. It's cheap and easy. When you find the caps that are very loose, you can swap in another cam to increase the clearance. Compare the clearance with the cams you are satisfied with.

With cams that spin Really Easy you can actually put it together and test it out, at least you won't burn up a bearing surface. Worst case you'll have a drop in peak Oil pressure but I'm betting with this hyperactive duratec oil pump you will still have plenty of oil pressure to cushion even the extra clearance you have now.
You can always put it together and test it with an oil pressure gauge and if you have good pressure, no noises and runs good, then don't worry about it.
 
Tom, I like your idea since it saves some money and a lot of work but to this point the cam caps that I have tested have been too small. I havn't pulled the left head valve cover on the 2.5L yet. Is there a chance that any of those cam caps may work? I'm going to give it a try tomorrow regardless. I'd really rather not pull the head and I'm giong to exhaust all other options before I do so. Tom, I'd like to say thank you at this point even though I havnt' resovled this problem yet, without your guidance it is very likely that I would have given up hope on this project already. You are a very valued member of this board and I would like to thank you for the insight and the knoweldge that you share with myself and other members of this board.
 
Well, I've decided that the head has to go. There is just too much scoring for my liking on the head. I never want to pull this apart again so I'm going to do it right now and get a new head. I can only sand it down so much then I'm messing with the cam-head clearances too much.
 
Damn man I was really hoping you would get this thing out on the road soon. Remember if you need an extra hand just message me and I'll stop by...Keep at it though, dont give up on her yet
 
There's no way I'm going to quit on it. I will get this baby running at full strength. It's just a matter of time. I'll be buying the head on Monday and hopefully I'll have it ready to install by Friday. If that's the case, the car should be up and running by next weekend.
 
DyComet said:
Ok, so here's the update to the people who are following this thread. Th rear head is going to get replaced. I can't find a cam cap that fits the head to my liking so I'm just going to pull it and replace it. The front head works fine and the crank easily turns with everything timed up. Let this be a lesson learned the hard way.
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So are you doing this entire tear down with the engine in the car? That has to be rough isn't it?
 
Well, I already have the timing cover off and the timing pulled and the cams out. I'm going to unbolt the headers at the y-pipe and pull the header out with the head itself. At this point, it shouldn't take me too long to get the rear head out.
 
Well, the head took me 20 minutes to get out to of the engine. The new head will be here on Wednesday and then the porting will begin. I hope to have it up and running by the weekend.
 
DyComet said:
Well, the head took me 20 minutes to get out to of the engine. The new head will be here on Wednesday and then the porting will begin. I hope to have it up and running by the weekend.
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Thats still pretty impressive, I didn't know we could really work on any timing related components with the engine in the car. Good luck :)
 
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