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Rod Siebert Cam Failure #626

New 11/15/05


Buford,

We've got a 97 SHO that we've had for about 6 years. Its since been handed down to our teenage son who loves the car and loves your website. The car has been pretty good until recently. Its now got about 115k on it. We had to put a tranny in it last year, but no complaints here. A few days ago, Justin (our son) stopped to put gas in the car. As he was leaving the station, the car just quit and he couldn't get it started. I don't really think that it had anything to do with the gas. Now for a little background. I've been around cars all my life and have a degree in mechanical engineering so we know enough to talk somewhat sensibly about mechanical issues. We did some rudimentary checks on a few things prior to taking the car in to a local shop. We weren't able to determine much ourselves. The local shop has put 4 hours of diagnostic time into it and has not identified any problems as yet. They have ruled out a few things though. I trust them completely and don't suspect that they are gouging us. They believe the problem to be with the front bank only. The car will run if you hold the gas to the floor and start it however the exhaust smells very rich and it runs rough. The mechanic suspects cylinders 5 & 8 more that any but is not sure that it is isolated to those cylinders. We are beginning to wonder if we have possibly experienced the dreaded cam failure. If we have had a cam failure, what would the symptoms be and how can we confirm it? If the cam failed, would it lock up the motor or would it still run like ours does? My son did mention that over the last few weeks he has had a few occurrences of rough idles on start up but it eventually evens out. He also said that he heard a ticking, similar to lifter noise, that started about a week ago. Have you got any ideas, or can you refer us somewhere that might be of help?

I would appreciate any help that you can offer.

Regards, Rod (Siebert)


I spoke to Rod tonight on the phone, it is a cam failure. Details Pending. - Buford


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