Snapped camshaft

[petrolh34d]

Car cut out on the way home this evening. There were no bangs, cracks or sudden stops.

The left hand cam pulley was sitting further out than normal, so I pulled of the rocker cover and found this:



What are the chances of engine survival?

Does anyone have a cam for a 2.5TDi, AEL engine lying around?

[Biff]

Pretty impressive it made no catastrophic noises when it crapped itself.
Hope it's an easy fix.

[martin_r_smith]

That is some bad news mate but pretty common this. What usually happens is the vacuum pump gets full of oil and crud which puts massive pressure on the camshaft resulting in the snap. I don't mean to be the bearer of bad news but you are going to need more than a camshaft, You will almost certainly have done a valve or two. Best bet is to whip the head off and get a replacement (£350 from autotech cylinder heads), it's not a particularly difficult job.

[petrolh34d]

I've heard that there's a performance cam available for this engine, but I can't seem to find one anywhere on the net.

Any ideas who makes them, and where I can get one?

[Doingitsideways]

That's a new one on me.

Best bet would be to get in touch with Martin R Smith, he's the go to guy on these around here.
Well, he knows more than me anyway

I'd be interested to hear if there is one.

Edit:
I missed his reply. Oops.

[petrolh34d]

Here's where I heard about the performance cam:

http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=346240

The guy Shadowmaker in that thread has a decent tune on his AEL.

[martin_r_smith]

Shadowmaker just had his original reground same as me. It just gives an additional 1-2mm of lift. In itself provides zero gain (proven on dyno) but when you start to ask for more it helps a little. If I had known how little I wouldn't have wasted my money!