Cam followers - summary

["Brian Shorey" <bshorey@domain.elided>]

A couple of weeks ago I asked about cam followers, and whether or not it was
important to keep them under the lobes of the cams they had been run with.
My personal opinion was that it did not matter, as if it did then the
implication would be that you *must* change followers every time you change
a cam.  Well, I've changed a bunch of cams and never changed followers
(unless they were obviously in need of replacement), and have never had a
problem.

Anyhow, I got a whole range of replies, most of them stating that it was
important to keep the followers together with the lobes they had spent time
under, for various reasons.

I did get two responses from two of the digesters to whom I give the most
amount of weight in all things Alfa, Tom Sahines and Jim Steck.  With
permission, their replies were as follows:

TS:

"Sorry but the Alfa cam followers (if that is what you are referring to) are
flat, not curved. They do not necessarily spin. The flatness can be easily
checked by sanding them on a piece of 320 wet or dry paper on a good piece
of glass. If they are not flat they should be changed or sent out to be
reground. If they are surfaced by the above method you can replace them
wherever you want."

JS:

"You can usually get away with switching followers on low-lift, low
lift-rate cams with soft valve springs, but switching tappets will wreck a
race cam . . . in less than 15 minutes at fast idle.  Steve Moresi's
explanation in #374 pretty well covered the subject."

Interpret the above however you'd like.  Hopefully it clears things up.

bs, still sorting through paint responses..

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