7000 mile nightmare

So we had a mild day in Minnesota and I got motivated. At the end of the season (first week of Oct for us northerners) I noticed a flake on the oil screen. I guess 2 days a BIR and one at blackhawk farms was too much for the 853. After installing the 853 kit last winter and checking all the rockers (replaced 2 openers with the new style OEM) and only putting 2000 miles on last year I was thinking it wouldn't be too bad. Damn was I ever wrong. 2 openers on the vertical cylinder have no chrome left. The 2 new style openers I installed look questionable as do 2 of the horizontal openers. All the closers look fine.

I'm worried about both cams on the vertical head. All the lobes have some wear on them but what should I be checking to see if I killed two cams? Next question...by running the 853 on the track without an oil cooler did I bring this on myself?

If the lobes are not black - it's no big deal - that's normal wear.

But, if you can drag your fingernail across theface of the lobe and feel a layer of metal deposited on it - that's not good.

Bummer. Hope it works out. (Yes we had a couple of 60 degree days and it was great. Tonight we got dumped on again)

if you run good synthetic and change it regularly (without going over the top) you can run the rockers without chrome. get them stripped, give them a really good polish and they'll be fine.

Thanks Mark...I'm in sunny New Orleans right now but will check the cams when I get back. Any thoughts on the oil cooler?

Dr. T...I had 3in of snow on my car this morning (left it out so I could work on the bike). Now I'm about to sit outside in 72deg and throw a couple back.