my cam has a hole in it, normal?

Checked the valve clearance yesterday. Ran into something interesting, the intake cam has a fake ground lobe between the #1 and #2 valves, only purpose I can think of for this lobe is balance, at the low spot in this lobe there is hole drilled into the oil passage of the cam, there is a clean area on the valve cover and top of the head around this hole so quite a bit of oil is flowing out of it, I cant think of any reason to pump oil at non moving parts except for cooling but they only did in in this one area

Is this normal? Or was this hole suppose to get a plug like many of the other oil galleys in this motor





All of the valves were at the high end of the spec, the #3 fwd intake was out of spec, .006” -.010” allowed it is .011”, with only one valve .001” out I am going to let it ride for a wile

the lobe is for a machanical fuel pump for carberated engines in other places. As for the oil hole I can check tuesday to see if the cams I have laying about have the holes or they are pluged. later robbie

Thanks Robbie, on my cam i can insert a punch .7", or pretty much to the middle of the cam

I hate to be needy but this is bugging me, did you get a chance to look at those?

I forgot yesterday but looked this morning before I saw this post. Yes the two other cams(different sets) have the same oil hole as you. The two head we have in the shed have similar clean patterns where the hole spins. So I would say that this is normal and toyota designed it this way. later robbie

good deal, I guess the hole is there to lube the mechanical fuel pump,

Thank You Robbie