Check Your Pinned Cams

Dear fellow SHO owners:

I discovered the cam problem by accident on the SHOshop website when looking to freshen and update the '96 SHO (Toreador Red) I had bought new, I was appalled to learn that Ford was not fixing the engines of these cars. I have had the car serviced only at the dealer since new, and was told nothing of the cars' engine problems.

When I bought my SHO from the Downtown Ford in Sacramento, it was Ford's 'techno' marvel piece for the '96 model year, spotlighting the wonders of their new model Taurus. Could have bought a lot of other really nice cars for what I paid for this one.

After looking at the v8sho.com website, reading the horror stories of the owners of cars with ruined engines, looking at the photos of both welded and pinned camshafts, and talking to the people at the SHOshop, I decided to have the SHOshop pin the cams in my car. I just couldn't do nothing and hope my car wouldn't be affected. At that point, January 2003, the car had 82,000 and was in excellent overall condition.

The SHOshop did the job at the end of January, along with a lot of other maintenance work. The car has performed perfectly since then. I am disturbed to see the photos that have recently been posted on the v8sho.com of pinned cams with cracks in the sprockets around the new pins.

I have two questions for the v8sho.com participants:

1) How many of us had our cams pinned and not welded?

2) Have any of those that pinned our cams had any problems related to that work?

Thanks,

David Felderstein