So around 60k miles ago, I had a lifter collapsing, and it started to eat a cam lobe. I pulled the cam, lifters, push rods, valve springs, rockers, oil pump, and timing set. I replaced them all. From the get go I was really disappointed in the cam (compared to my first cam I installed). It was a torque monster down low, but it signed off at 5500 rpm’s. My oil pressure was good, but I just felt like it didn’t make the power it should have. Recently my oil pressure started getting weird at high rpms, and fell to 20 psi at hot idle. I pulled the front off the engine to replace the oil pump, oil pickup tube oring, and the cam retainer plate. I found that I had installed my cam one tooth off!!!! I corrected the cam timing, replaced the oring, retainer plate, and put a new oil pump in. My hot idle oil pressure is at 40 psi now, and climbs to 80 psi at 6200 rpm. My truck runs great again. It pulls hard all the way to 6200 rpm, and just runs better. I can’t believe I screwed that up so bad. I’m lucky that I didn’t hurt anything. Lesson learned.

 

Don't feel bad. I've made some silly mistakes myself working on my trucks over the years. Sometimes mistakes help us learn, hopefully without eating too much into your pocket.

I remember your thread now. I'm kinda surprised the cam being off didn't cause any catastrophic valve-to-piston damage. That's really good news.

And why do you think the cam being off caused low oil pressure? Or was that unrelated to that? Maybe it was your cam retaining plate that was leaking? They said you should always replace those, even though I've considered reusing them, maybe just adding a bit of RTV? I'm gonna delete that thought from my brain. LoL

 

Oil pressure was good up until a month ago. I went in, just to resolve the oil pressure issue. I was lucky I did, because I wouldn’t have known that my cam was off a tooth. The oring actually looked great, the oil pump didn’t look bad either, but the oring on the cam retainer plate looked bad. I never replaced the retainer plate on the first cam I did, or the replacement cam I put in. So I’m 99% sure that was my problem. Put the melling 18% more volume pump in this time around.

 

at least your mistake didn't cost much money. I'm curious if the change in valve events required any tuning changes?

 

I had the truck tuned with the original can I put in. The second cam I put in was almost identical to the first cam I put in. I’m sure it would help to have it tuned. But I’m planning on putting long tube headers, on and a full exhaust system soon. I’ll have it tuned again after that. I live in BFE and have to travel 4 hours to the nearest tuner.

 

The idiot would have replaced the engine, or sold the pickup, (which has happened many times). You figured it out and fixed it. Nice job.

 

So this was the whole oil pressure cause/ issue? And here I'm beating myself up about the lifter valley DOD holes in the towers............

 

Yes I believe that this was the problem. For me at least. The oring looked good for the pickup tube.

 

I wonder what service manual says about that cam retaining plate? 🤔🤷

Almost sounds like we should advocate for a "non-reusable" philosophy for that one, no?

 

I should check what it says but I know you should replace it lol