"Old School" Stocker Cams

[Paul Precht]

Originally Posted by Dave Gantz

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.

The Chevy blocks, cams and lifters were all soft and brittle iron back in the 60s and 70s. The cams didn't have the large oil drain back area the Mopars had directly over the lobes nor the larger lifters and with the rocker/stud setup always loosening up they didn't last long. Back in 72 I rebuilt a 65 283 for a friends 62 Corvette and a 60 413 for myself. After removing the 283 cam which was missing a few lobes, I threw it up in the air on the asphalt road and it broke into about 50 pieces. I did the same with the 413 cam but it just bounced around without a break, I then at 17 yo using a good amount of force took it over the concrete curb with my hands and whacked it at least 20 times and couldn't even break it in half, the only way that 413 cam was coming apart was with a saw or a torch.