Strange Cam Spray Bar Issue

[4sd911]

You should have a stream of oil spraying out of the holes in the tube, these tubes can get clogged. As far as the orientation of the holes in the tube it sounds like this may just be an issue on your early car and not really a problem in it self.

A 100 psi doesn't sound real high for the oil pressure when cold. My car was burying 250 psi on a cold engine with about 3000 rpm's, upon disassembly of engine I never could point to what the problem was now with engine back together cold oil pressure is about 90 psi with about 3000 rpm's.

[Walt Fricke]

These pictures I took were to illustrate how the main oiling holes line up on the cam housings. You can see how the drilling for the cam bearings lines up with the big holes in the spray bar. And, if you put the spray bar in wrong end first, things don't line up properly. Edit - oh, these are 3.2 cam carriers, so they have 4 cam journals. Yours should only have one in the middle, not two.

I don't have pictures of where the spray bar holes are, point, etc. These either point correctly or are 180 degrees off. Proper is you can see one hole per intake side when looking there. But do a search for "spray bar" and you'll find what you need. I recall recently a post (for which I took these pictures) where the owner showed the oil spray in three nice lines on the inside of the intake valve cover. I'm always learning (or relearning) something, because I thought those would spray at the cam or spring directly. I was wrong, but never needed to know that specifically.

Assuming yours are proper end for end (because the cam has not siezed up), just rotate so you can see that one hole for the intakes.

Those who have tried to watch the intakes in action report an unholy mess of oil. So if you could take the intake covers off and not make a mess, something is wrong. Either the bars are installed upside down, or the intake holes are plugged. You can poke a small wire through those intake holes to see if they are plugged. Edit - not intake holes, spray holes.

You can disconnect the oil line (everything else in place) and blow air from an air chuck into the oil line fitting on the cam housing. You should be able to feel air blowing out of all the holes. With the engine apart, one sprays brake cleaner in and then puts the air to it to see how things are working and to clean out scummy oil, but you don't want to do that with things on the engine.

Of course, if you pull the bars you can really clean them. I included a photo of how I like to reseal these, so they will be easy to pull next go around (for a race motor, which has to come apart more often than a 200,000 mile street motor).

Do a search here, and on the 911 forum, to see what folks think about aftermarket engine mounted oil coolers. I can't believe a Behr would fail (though I can't believe how much they cost new either). Bad coolers sounds like it may be a more logical explaination.

Walt

[rscheps]

Thanks again Walt. I know the picture you are talking about with the oil streaks on the inside of the intake covers. I have a couple of cam tower leaks to take care of anyway so I may just pull them off and clean everything up.