Topic: Comment on my Crappy Camshaft Concerns.
Bob and I recently rebuilt a 225 slant six that came out of a car whose previous owner didn't know about oil changes. So much black gunk in that block. We stripped it down, cleaned it up real good, measured all the bores and journals, and decided it didn't need actual machine work. So we reamed the ridges, honed the bores, and put it all back together with new rings, crank bearings, and cam bearings. The camshaft itself looked pretty worn; I think the tip of each lobe had lost 030-.040" lift. But the engine was going in an art car, and it had run when parked, so we figured it was good enough for the power this engine needed to make. The old lifters had to be pounded out of the block with a screwdriver, so we replaced them with new.
On initial startup, everything was fine. Good oil pressure, and once it got up to temp and I got the valves lashed correctly, it purred like a kitten. Only one problem: most of the pushrods (and therefore the lifters) aren't spinning. My online reading tells me that this will lead to "premature cam and lifter wear." Well, the cam is already pretty worn. We went ahead and did a normal cam break-in for the new lifters, but no change. The car drives perfectly, in my opinion. If I hadn't checked for lifter spin, I wouldn't suspect a problem just based on performance.
Should I be concerned about this? Is the cam going to get much worse than it already is just because the lifters aren't spinning? I don't want to sell this car as-is if the freshly rebuilt engine is going to crap out on the new owner. An in-car cam swap would be a pain in the ass, but it wouldn't actually be as bad as on most engines. For an early slant six, you don't even need to pull the head. Hardest part would be jacking the engine up to get the oil pump off.
