No flame needed Mark and I hope no one took my advice the wrong way. I am one that loves to save a buck when I can just like the rest and have put used cams in my engines in the past. The reason I thought it was worth investing another $80-100 in a new cam was the fact that Armond said the lifters were in bad shape and that most were mushroomed. With that in mind, there is most likely some abnormal wear on the cam lobe as well that will be exaggerated by a new set of lifters. During the initial break in, they will try to make a wear pattern to match the cam lobe. Since it is much harder to tell if a lobe is bad than it is to tell if a lifter is, I felt the best thing would be change both while it is apart. The few extra $ will seem cheap if the cam goes bad after you add the new set of lifters. If you do use the old cam, like others have stated in their posts, be sure to use an oil additive with a lot of zinc. This will help the break in period when the lifters and cam are the most vulnerable. As for roller cams, I am trying to get the price down so they are not so outrageous. The cam is not the big problem it is the lifters. They are almost twice the cost of the cam. Even for a Chevy they are not cheap. They are worth it though. No break in period or wear issues like with a flat tappet. Better than that is the performance gain. A roller cam will out perform the same grind in a flat tappet every time. The ramp speed is so much more aggressive and your power band is much wider with a roller. You can get a lot more duration and still have good low end power instead of loosing most of your low end with the increased duration. Nick Alfano Alfano Performance Kenosha, WI. 53142 262-308-1302 262-942-8271 after 6pm central and weekends Message: 2 Date: Thu, 01 Mar 2007 20:40:42 +0000 From: Wrambler242@xxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: [Amc-list] New lifters old cam To: "AMC/Rambler owners, drivers and fans." <amc-list@xxxxxxxxxxxx> Message-ID: <030120072040.21843.45E73A4A0000B7E0000055532215567074CDCBCD0A0C079D9F059D0E03@xxxxxxxxxxx> There's no real cure for RM [Rambler mentality] With treatment it can be managed. The best means of containment is as soon as the urge to use old worn out parts enters your mind, Take the rectangle of plastic and go to Summitt online and order new parts. This way you are still practicing some form of RM. Caution must be used as sometimes wives do not see this as an improvement! I've done the new lifters on used cams things many more times then I care to admit. FYI, I've never had a cam failure. Of course we are talkiing short term use of a year or two of bracket racing, street driven beaters 30 years ago on old High zinc oils. If it was a throw away beater motor, I'd buy a cheap set of lifters, do the breakin and run it on Shell rotella. Flame on! RM! Flame on! -- Mark Price Morgantown, WV 1969 AMC Rambler, 4.0L, EFI, T-5 _______________________________________________ Amc-list mailing list Amc-list@xxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.amc-list.com/mailman/listinfo/amc-list