Cam followers - that was depressing

[69vitesse]

Speaking with a very well respected Triumph outfit today about the best followers to use on my NOS PI cam…

'Use good OEM Stanpart'

No top new brands you can reccommend?

Not really, they're all much of a muchness now, china/india, some good, some bad, no way of telling. You can only be sure with Stanpart.

Bummer… :(

[Hogie]

Have a word with Newman Cams

Roger

[thescrapman]

2601 wrote:

Have a word with Newman Cams

Roger

Ditto.

Their higher spec items. Ought to be decent quality.

Not cheap.

Cheers

Colin

[69vitesse]

Thats the problem, 'ought to be'... :o

When you get told of a cam/followers from a quality source eating itself in 12k miles, and high spec TR5 builds using recycled OEM to ensure reliability, you go, hmmmmmm.

These things were made for pennies by the gazillion by Leyland and a hundred other other vendors, how hard can it be to produce these to a reliable quality?

I'll probably ask Newmans about their cast iron ones if I can't police up a decent set from my two spare engines.

[thescrapman]

It is the EN40B ones you need to ask about. Not cheap! They also do cast iron ones, which may actually be more suited to the NOS cam.

I had a good chat to a Mr Newman at the Autosport show, very approachable guy. I think it was David Newman. Also went to their workshop and spoke to him.

I have no reason to suspect their products are made anywhere apart from the UK.

Talk to them about what you want to do.

Cheers

Colin

[CRAJ]

The Newman website does state that you should spec the followers to match the cam (material wise), so that should be borne in mind, as too hard a follower may just cause problems with the cam, which echoes what Colin has said above.

Colin

[TedTaylor]

Don't mix old cam followers with a new cam or another cam because apparently wear patterns build up between new cam and new followers which will cause problems with an old one of either.

Having said that, back in the 1970s when building my race/rally spec TR3 engine for my Morgan Plus4 I needed a set of followers for my new half race cam.  Could only get seven from my local Triumph dealer (!) so took the best one of my other old ones and very carefully ground the surface on a piece of glass using fine valve seat paste until it just had an even all over matt surface.

I then rebuilt the engine with the seven new followers and this old one.  Worked a treat and survived over 6000 rpm in regular sustained bursts for nearly 20,000 miles including a lot of rallying.

Not suggesting you do this unless it was absolutely necessary.

[andy thompson]

I have used many combinations - most recently I have tried a tuftrided cam with newman cast followers - that gave very good results - after extremely hard use it showed no wear on the cams or the followers - I'd be very happy to re install it all if I wasn't changing cams.

In my 2100 I have a tuftrided reground original cam using Wishbone Classics followers.

One common theme is I have had no issues once the camshaft is tuftrided. All my (and Humphs)  follower/cam issues have been with reground cams (non hardened) or cam on new blanks (non hardened).

[andy thompson]

thescrapman wrote:

It is the EN40B ones you need to ask about. Not cheap! They also do cast iron ones, which may actually be more suited to the NOS cam.

I had a good chat to a Mr Newman at the Autosport show, very approachable guy. I think it was David Newman. Also went to their workshop and spoke to him.

I have no reason to suspect their products are made anywhere apart from the UK.

Talk to them about what you want to do.

Cheers

Colin

I suspect that Newman cams raw castings have a very strong whiff of spices from the east - and further east than Turkey

[nang]

My goodness, curried cam followers, (woot)
Tony.

[Greeks]

lagerzok wrote:

I suspect that Newman cams raw castings have a very strong whiff of spices from the east - and further east than Turkey

Armenia?
Azerbajdžan?

[TRTOM2498]

Agree with Andy T here.

I have Newman steel followers in my TR6, with Newman cam.  Several tracks days, a 10CR, and generally driven hard and no complaints at all.


Cheers.

[oil_on_the_carpet]

So the 'magic' seems to be to find a combination of hardness's that work together.
Hard new followers with reground/OEM cam - cam wears
Hard cam with unhardened followers - follower wears

Naturally OEM solves all these issues as the cam and followers will match in hardness and work harden together.

The issue with a NOS cam is going to be finding followers that are not too soft or too hard, and being as how the vendors seem rather reluctant by and large to put a Rockwell number to their wares, that is not as easy as it looks.

And yes, I was told that Newman now hails from East of Suez.

[Richard B]

Getting the right combination of materials is essential. There will always be some wear it's just keeping it to manegable levels that is the difficulty.

Several years ago Land-Rover had a cam problem due to the supplier of the cam buckets changing the material without telling them.

The problem was caused by a supply issue, so not wanting to delay delivery to LR the manufacturer used a higher grade material for the buckets (figuring a higher grade would be better). Unfortunately the followers were too hard for the cam, thus wiping out the lobes in a very short time.

This lead to a very expensive recall.

[thescrapman]

2748 wrote:

And yes, I was told that Newman now hails from East of Suez.

You could try asking them the origins of the raw materials.

Cheers

Colin

[oil_on_the_carpet]

Offhand, does anyone know the Rockwell hardness of an OEM cam?

[andy thompson]

Well I know where the cams were cast about three years ago. Straight from Mr Newman. Not really an issue as many OE cams are made there.

My most recent cam swap uses a new Kent blank that has been tuftrided - on balance I think I prefer the Kent blank as it retains the original style scrolled journals. Think they are from a Turkish foundry