Hi All
Bad Aaron he did not mention the new cam follower test.
Had a motor on the dyno a 998 with a 266 Kent Cam and followers in it, paint on the pushrods noticed not all were rotating, run the motor for an hour plus then pulled the followers out and noted that 2 were rotating 2 were oscillating and 4 just sat there going up and down have a look at the photos on my website click on cam followers and scroll down, this cam and followers would not have lasted long,so get your new followers ground just to be sure to be sure.
Graham Russell

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"It's better to be not informed than ill-informed"

It's here.

http://russellengineering.com.au/?p=590

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Hi Morris 1100
I'm not sure which one I would pick, all three sound good, the thing is we get people on this forum and other forums whining and bitching about the quality of after market parts but nothing is done about it.
If it fails they just whine about it and go buy another one, this is why some of us are kicking up a stink about cam followers. People are told to put new followers in and everything will be ok and most people would not know that something is going wrong until it is way to late,and before you know it you have this very fine cast iron and steel grinding past grinding away at your motor and gear box, can be very expensive.
A while back we kicked up a stink about the hardness of the followers to the major sellers in the UK and to their credit they did some thing about it. We had followers that were down as low as 40 to 42 RC which is way too soft, they are now coming in at around 53 to 55 which you can get away with.
I sent some old followers out of an old 850 engine to KEITH CALVER to show Mini Spares Centre
they came in at 61 RC a lot of the old ones come in at 57 to 60RC.
So why should people that buy new follower and have to get them reground, David Anton in the States APT went out on his own and has them made correctly, they are a lot more expensive
but they are correct, once again you only get what you pay for.
Graham Russell

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"It's better to be not informed than ill-informed"

GR, I'm glad there are blokes like you that are doing the hard work and looking after the quality control in these parts.

Some people think that you just buy a brand new part and it will always work straight from the box. As our cars get older it will be harder and harder to buy good parts.

Its things like this people dont think about. I have been a diesel mechanic for 18 yrs and never new or thought about this. I applaud you gr on all you hard work.

Rodney

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The best part of fixing your mini is the test drive

Minis..

1976 van daily drive
1975 van
1968 deluxe in the shed
1967 deluxe high strung 1310
1959 austin healey sprite

Sorry to dig up an old topic, but I've just been bitten by this. I built this motor many many years ago & it's just sat there. I had completely forgotten all about this problem.

Recently fired it up & this is the result after approx 5000kms.

HI Bennoz
Thanks for that, the problem has been around for years but no body wanted to listen back then and i'm not sure they want to listen now,so we'll just keep yelling from the roof tops and maybe some one will get onto the manufactures and get them to do something to fix the problem.
Graham Russell

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"It's better to be not informed than ill-informed"

Yikes!

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SooperDooperMiniCooperExpertEngineering

All garage work involves equal measures of enthusiasm, ingenuity and a fair degree of irresponsibility.

+1
Nasty

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1963 Morris 850 Smoke Grey
1963 Morris 850 Shadow Blue
1965 Morris Mini Smooth Van
1966 Morris Mini Van
1969 Morris Mini Deluxe Resto
5/72 Clubman Gt

Ouch!

What brought your attention to the problem - valve train noise or widening rocker gaps?

What cam grind was that, just out of interest?

cheers,

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'72 Clubman Van - 1022cc, 295 head, 731 cam - Daily Driver
'69 Morris 1100 S - Dinged by a bus, in shed under repair
'64 Morris 1100 - Early 1100, long term project

I once had a Camtech VP3 cam do that, however it took 45,000 miles with 1.5 rockers (and some track work) for it to happen.
I reckon not only is the cam follower's radius important, but also the nose radius of the cam. Some cams (not GR's) are way too sharp for durability....

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DrMini- 1970 wasaMatic 1360, Mk1S crank, 86.6HP (ATW) =~125 @ crank, 45 Dellorto (38 chokes), RE282 sprint cam, 1.5 rockers, 11.0:1 C/R.

Would a roller cam set up be possible on a Mini or is this not doable on the A-series block?

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Slide
1965 Mini Van (1360)
1970 Mk2 Cooper S (1310)
1978 Rover SD1 V8 (4.6)
1996 Land Rover Discovery V8 (4.0)

Has been done I think. I believe Fred Sayers did it decades ago?

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The bitterness of poor quality (or Crappy Workmanship) remains LONG AFTER the Sweet Taste of Low Price is forgotten.

Hi Slide
To answer your question, yes, you can fit a roller cam to a mini engine. Back in the early nineties before I had my cam grinder I was dealing with Dimitri Elgin of Elgin Cams. I had already had a cam ground here. He told me to stop before I spent any more money because it would not work as well as a good flat tappet, and told me the reasons why. He bored the cam journals out as far as he could, did not run any cam bearings so he could get the lobes as big as he could to try and to get the acceleration rate up higher. But because the size of the roller was still too small and the lobe size too small he could not get it to work any better than the flat tappet.

A flat tappet cam will accelerate faster to .200/.250 thou lift than a roller and because we don't use big lifts as compared to the V8 (they run up to around .950 in drag cars and they go over 1 inch in lift), we can get the flat tappet cam to work very well.

If you have a look at my RE83 that is very much like a roller cam, very fast rate of lift with a very large nose radius just like a roller, but still works with a std lifter. It's a very good road cam (260 duration and .270 lift), but once the valve is open it holds it open for a long time, which is why it makes a lot of torque and hp all by 6000 rpm.

I have had a few B series motors on the dyno with roller cams in them and did back to back comparisons. My flat tappet cams made much better torque and HP, as did the 3 litre Healey motor we had on there. It will cost you a lot of money to do the conversion and it's not worth it in a Mini.

I will get Aaron to post a photo of a RE83 and a similar cam of the same duration and lift.

Graham Russell

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"It's better to be not informed than ill-informed"