Repair-It

http://autoweek.com/article/car-news/ho ... dailydrive

Just goes to show that Honda is not immune to this, in case after all this recall stuff that was still in debate.

kevm14 wrote:http://autoweek.com/article/car-news/ho ... dailydrive

Just goes to show that Honda is not immune to this, in case after all this recall stuff that was still in debate.

Jenn's '97 Civic suffered a camshaft failure at ~120K. The cam broke in half somehow. We replaced the engine with one from a junkyard with similar mileage. The car now has 304K on it.

I am not a cam expert, but from what I have heard, cams are very strong, but brittle. I saw on a car show, a guy dropped one on the ground and it broke in half. Maybe there was an impact to it at some point and it was already weakened before it even went into the car at the factory, or shipping to the factory.

billgiacheri wrote:I am not a cam expert, but from what I have heard, cams are very strong, but brittle. I saw on a car show, a guy dropped one on the ground and it broke in half.

That is correct. I recommend trying it with old cams as you swap them out for performance cams. This is even true of SBC cams.

It is possible that there was some sort of assembly or manufacturing defect in it. She still has the cam, so I guess we could look at the broken cross section and perhaps determine if it was a metallurgy issue. The car was hit and "repaired" some time before she got the car. There was some sort of side impact with the right quarter panel.

Cam failure like described could have been caused by an oiling issue too as an improperly lubricated bearing surface could have caused it to seize and the resulting engine torque to rip it in half. That explanation is less likely because the powertrain (unlike the exterior) has always been maintained properly since she got the car with ~60K on it.