I’m writing this on March 27th, the day my friend Bruce Williams came over to install 16 new valve springs into the aluminum cylinder heads I bought from him a few months ago. Those heads came with brand-new springs, correctly matched for my Comp Cams hydraulic flat tappet cam.

On March 15th, I discovered something I’d never encountered before—a broken push rod in the small block Chevy engine of my ’78 Camaro bracket racer. With Team Firebird races #5 and #6 coming up on March 29th and 30th, I knew I had to act fast. I’m definitely not a mechanic, but I figured this was a job I could (and should) handle.

I called Bruce to see if he had a replacement push rod. Not only did he have one, but he gave me two—just in case. It took me a few days to build up the courage to get started, but with race weekend fast approaching, I dove in. Before I knew it, the intake manifold and my new (used) Demon 650cfm double-pumper carburetor were sitting on the garage floor.

Right around that time, Bruce called to check in. Had I reinstalled the push rod and intake manifold? Nope—I was still in that “building up my courage” phase. That’s when Bruce dropped a bombshell: he wanted to come over and replace all 16 valve springs. The manufacturer had just alerted him that some of their springs might be defective. Talk about perfect timing! Having Bruce’s help to reassemble everything was a huge win.

He showed up Thursday morning, March 27th, right on time and got straight to work. But as soon as he started on the first cylinder, he found a completely destroyed lifter. Not good. He explained that if the lifter was shot, the cam lobe was almost certainly wiped out too. That brought our progress to a screeching halt.

Bruce then told me he refuses to sell hydraulic flat tappet cams because of problems like this. Roller cams may cost more, but they don’t suffer from these kinds of failures.

So, where does that leave me? Right now, I’m not sure. These car-related setbacks can be incredibly frustrating. And as for racing this weekend? Probably not happening.

Happy Spring!