Help! Snapped Camshaft Bearing Cap

[Dak]

Purchased the Ford Racing Hot Rod Performance Camshafts last week and tackled this swap starting on Friday at two in the afternoon, I followed the customer submitted directions on AmericanMuscle.com step by step taking my time at first, cleaning everything as I went. Then had a buddy come over to help me with the actual changing of the camshaft, unfortunately he handed me the driver's side camshaft on the passenger side and when tightening down the bearing caps, the front most cap, which is the largest of the five due to the camshaft on this side being about a quarter inch shorter, the side of it snapped off due to it coming down incorrectly on the camshaft. I think it would have been beneficial of Ford to make it very clear which side is which so the mistake could not have been made. Ford is claiming I need to buy a $1200 head because they do not sell those bearing caps separately. I'm now Currently in the process of trying to locate one. I'm going to just put this out there so no one else makes my same mistake, whatever you do, do NOT try and JB Weld a cap back together. I was desperate and I did what I had to do to make things work, and it lasted barely 30 minutes before that piece snapped off again, which I am very lucky it did not completely screw up my whole engine. I then read on a forum that I could attempt to tig weld it back together, which had worked for another guy with a similar scenario, but the cast iron aluminum that they are made of is just not capable of being welded properly and the broken piece warped tremendously halfway through welding it.

I'm now in desperate need of a camshaft bearing cap, passenger side, for a 2010 Mustang GT with a 4.6L V8, which is the same for 2005-2010, and also I believe for some model explorers and F-Series trucks. I've checked local junkyards, mustangs shops, and craigslist ads with no luck.

Here's some pics:

 

[scott9050]

car-part.com has some complete heads in the $200 range. Might be a solution for spare parts.

 

[squeak93]

I may be mistaken but the caps are machined per head (at least they were with earlier 2v/4v heads) I imagine if you've ruined the cam cap that they head will need to come off and either replaced or sent to someone for repair.

 

[1987stangman]

It could be possible to get a cap for it from a junk yard 3v engine. Same cap, from the same part of the head that you need and then take the head off your car and take it to a machine shop and have it line board to the cam. I know this is possible but I would call a couple of machine shop in your area to see for sure.

 

[Dak]

So I got the cap in, and the car runs, drives, and sounds just fine. I bent a few of the teeth on the camshaft position sprocket at the front of the cam, I tried to bend them back exactly where they need to be, but I think it has to be absolutely perfect for it not to throw a P0349 because the position sensor would be milliseconds off. So the guy that sent me that bearing cap is sending me a sprocket hopefully as well. The first tune I got from Bama Performance wouldn't hold an idle and kept killing the car while trying to set it's own idle. However the second tune worked, held an idle and drives fine at normal speeds, but I took the car to the track last night to see the power gains on the new cams and completely disappointed. I was told there would be low end torque loss... but I'm running like 19's. My best time of the night was a 17.64. Before the cams I was getting yelled at for running 13.9's without a helmet. Is this a tune issue? The car does not feel as powerful, even at idle, it's not as loud, and struggles to make power as you accelerate hard, it sorta just tugs along. Is there a possibility I lost compression in any of the cylinders? The only thing I changed was the camshafts and that one bearing cap.