Yep, it was the camshaft

Last night I began tearing into the car. I was able to get the engine completely unbolted, and today unbolted the transmission from the car and removed them as a unit. I separated the engine and transmission, put the engine on the engine stand, and tore it down to a short block. It probably took me around 5 hours to remove the engine and transmission. The hardest part was removing the headers, almost everything else could be done with an air ratchet. I removed the camshaft and, sure enough, the #7 intake lobe was worn down. If you look at the radius of the outer base circle of the lobe in the first picture and compare it to the the others in the picture, you can see the amount of wear this lobe has on it. Its also shows some of the scuffing on the face. If you look at the second picture, you can see more of the wear. The camshaft has worn with a

taper towards the cam journal.

Everything else in the block looks fine. I am going to pop the main and rod caps off tomorrow, but the cylinder bores look fine, the push rods are straight, timing chain shows no wear, etc.

What's next? Well, I told myself if the camshaft was bad I would convert from a hydraulic flat tappet cam to a hydraulic roller tappet. The existing camshaft has 280/280 degrees of duration and .51/.512 lift. I took a look at the cams available at Summit and found this one from Edelbrock, which has an advertised duration of 298/302, and a .520/.520 lift. I will also need a set of roller tappet lifters and a new set of valve springs. The springs are a safety item since this cam, or any roller cam, will be putting a lot more stress on them than the flat tappets.

I am anxious to get this back together. Think about it, I ran a 14.0 with a busted rear differential, poor ignition timing, and essentially on 7 cylinders, as this lobe wasn't opening the valve much at all. I hope I can get it back together by the end of the month so that I can make a few more passes before the end of the season.