Cam rubbing on valve cover

So I switched my valve cover, a week in I started noticing that the paint is fading on the intake cam side. Have ya ever seen this before? Is my cam hitting the cover? It's a b20 with ls valve cover. https://imgur.com/a/z8zCs Here's a picture

Unless your cam gear is completely fucked and grinding it's way through.... But it's more likely that it's just a crappy rattle can job that's starting to flake.


Also, there's no difference between B20 and 96+ LS valve covers.

Thank you for those kind words. Hope is just that... how would I know if my cam gear is fck? Car runs fine, there's no weird idle.

If your cam gear somehow got bent, you'd probably have much bigger problems to worry about. Like how it got bent in the first place :lol:

Dnethics said:

Click to expand...

Well that's odd... though it looks more like someone rubbed it off with a scotchbrite pad than heat.

Start the car, then hold your hand on the valve cover right there, see if it gets hotter than the rest of it in that spot.

You should feel a bent cam gear when you drive the car, would probably vibrate/shake like hell, but maybe the belt is rubbing the cover for some reason? If it were me I'd remove the valve cover and inspect.

Yeah nope, no shaking or vibration while driving. The old valve cover had it too. Ill have to inspect that on the weekend.

Something is going on there if this is the 2nd valve cover to do that.

Did you look inside your old valve cover for rubbing marks?

https://imgur.com/a/8kEH4 That's the old valve cover
I see some rubbing but nothing too crazy. That's the intake side

Is that groove normal? I only know the inside of the vtec covers which are smooth.

If not then holy shit...

You don't want any rubbing though, broken timing belts are no fun.