Cam Girdle cracked

88stang88

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Over the weekend I decided to get back into the garage and put the Heads back onto the block (this has taken me forever to do due to kids and sports) and thought everything was going smooth. I took them out of the bags from having them freshened up at the Machine Shop. They came back fully assembled, placed them on the block and noticed a few things.

1st thing is it appears the timing marks on my Secondary Timing Gears are off and not lined up.

Started looking at what all tools I would need to remove the Secondary Gears and double check things and I stumbled into another issue.

It appears that my drivers side intake cam girdle is cracked. It looks cracked on one of the bracing pieces and not on the main journal that holds the cam down. I will take a picture tonight when I get home.

Anyone have experience with one cracking? Fixes or solutions?

First thought was just have it tig welded and try to get it as close to smooth as can be. I have read that these are machined specific to the heads and from what I have found you cannot just buy new ones.
 

96blak54

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If the cam girdle connections that link the caps together is where the crack is, i wouldnt worry to much about it. If the crack is on the cap then maybe attention is required.
 
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88stang88

88stang88

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Sorry for the delay fellas, here is a couple pictures of what I have going on.

IMG-1776.jpg IMG-1777.jpg

My phone had a hard time focusing in on the crack from the side view. Best picture I could get of it at the moment.
 
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88stang88

88stang88

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I reached out to John Smith at John Smith Racing. He has a few YouTube videos about these engines and probably the best how-to on timing these engines. I remembered that he did not have the same girdle setup on his engine.

He said that he just cut the bracing off of them because custom cam lobes wont clear the stock girdle bracing.

Which had me thinking that Crankshafts just have main caps without side bracing and they are under a lot more pressure than cam caps/girdles would be. I am either going to leave them be or cut them down.

Does anyone think differently or have an opinion to sway this decision?
 

lwarrior1016

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If anyone knows correctly, it would be blak. That being said, I agree completely because trick flow heads for the 2v have individual caps, the Windsor 2v heads have individual caps, and the coyotes have individual caps. I wouldn’t hesitate to run it at all.
 
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88stang88

88stang88

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If anyone knows correctly, it would be blak. That being said, I agree completely because trick flow heads for the 2v have individual caps, the Windsor 2v heads have individual caps, and the coyotes have individual caps. I wouldn’t hesitate to run it at all.

This is exactly my thought process after doing some more reading and talking to several people. Thank you guys for helping me figure this out.
 

joe65

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If anyone knows correctly, it would be blak. That being said, I agree completely because trick flow heads for the 2v have individual caps, the Windsor 2v heads have individual caps, and the coyotes have individual caps. I wouldn’t hesitate to run it at all.

This! /\

here's a pic of my windsor heads...13471.JPEG
 

RAU03MACH

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is that the front or rear part of cam girdle connection
i dont think its that bad , maybe put some jb weld around it just to give it a little stability
 

RAU03MACH

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If anyone knows correctly, it would be blak. That being said, I agree completely because trick flow heads for the 2v have individual caps, the Windsor 2v heads have individual caps, and the coyotes have individual caps. I wouldn’t hesitate to run it at all.
the front cam girdle and rear i believe they have oil ports on them
would a cap like that work
 

96blak54

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All the cam towers of a modular head have oil ports and is connected straight to the oiling system with no orifice unlike the hydraulic lashers which are regulated and on an orifice meaning the lashers receive different psi.
 

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