I have a cross drilled cam shaft on my 63 292 which means it must have been changed out for the original. Are there any issues with the cross drilled verses groves does one oil better? I am wondering if this is something to worry about.

not as good as groved re oil to rockers,my under standing it was the early type,sure  some 1 will correct us if not dcorect,the advantage of this site

The groove can wear away flat after many miles, whereas the X drilled can't. That was the logic behind my going with a drilled one vs grooved. I'm by no means the "go to" guy for info on here, though...


BOO- YA!!!

I have pulled apart several 1963/1964 292’s that had the cross drilled camshafts.  I vaguely remember a technical service bulletin mentioning this but don’t remember the details.  While the oil flow to the top end of the engine with the cross drilled camshaft design is less than with the grooved design, failure of oil flow stopping as a result of camshaft bearing wear is greatly minimized.

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)

Let me see if I understand
Are you saying the the risk of the cam not getting oiled is minimized withe cross drilled or am I reading that wrong. Should I try to find a groved cam and if I do don't I have to replace the lifters ?

Let me see if I understand
Are you saying the the risk of the cam not getting oiled is minimized withe cross drilled or am I reading that wrong. Should I try to find a groved cam and if I do don't I have to replace the lifters ?

grooved cam would get a constant oil flow,makeing for beter lub to that cam bearing-versus cros drill with stop and start type flow.have had 3 ys apart in the last 6 months non had exseaive wear on the groved bearing of the cam. non had real bad cam bearings,last 1 a truck versiom i would not replace cam bearings. the cam grinder i use tells me the groved cores are hard to get so folks out hear must of read mufets article which sead he would not use a cross drilled cam

Note, some of the guys are cutting a groove behind the bearing which effectively bypasses the cam altogether. this eliminated the wear issue.

Frank/Rebop

Bristol, In ( by Elkhart) 

can't see how that would decrease the cambearing wear,you still have the gruve in the bearing ,but with less oil flow to the bearing., the grove out side the cam bering would asure rocker lube  if a cam bearing turned. heard about cam bearings coming loose but have not witnes it, possibly hapens more often on the crosdrilled cam.

I don't have the details in front of me, but apparently Ford went back to the cross drilled cam for a period in 1963 or 64. Probably because they knew they were phasing out the engines effective at end of 1964, & wanted to use up old stock. John Mummert (Machine) discouvered a few years ago, that somehow the specs for replacement cam blanks, for the oil groove, were incorrect & too shallow. In his advertising specs he states that his cams have the oil groove spec depth corrected.   


Paul