"Old School" Stocker Cams

[Dave Gantz]

Originally Posted by Greg Reimer 7376

Maybe, that could explain why so many small block Chevy cams went flat all through the '70s and 80's. It's also a possibility that a cam vendor had problems with quality control that caused a lot of problems. Seems to me that some Ford engines in the late '50's and early '60's had a bunch of issues like that, too.

It wouldn't surprise me if Chevy tried to save a penny or two by changing the "recipe" of the steel or iron that the cams were made from. The vendors only adhered to the provided spec. Short term quality problems were more likely a vendor issue.
I say this from my experience working at a vendor that provided tooling and stampings for the big three. We would order steel that was to the customers spec ("recipe"), and it was checked by QC. It would then rust through in a few years until Japanese competition magically made UAW stuff better (late 80's,early 90's). If there was a vendor QC issue, we worked to get it back to the customer's standard, whatever that may have been.