The oil pump gear is a toothed roller, so I think it is a possibility. The cam gears have the most wrap, so my guess is they are more likely to stop the belt and cause the crank gear to strip teeth. We had a seized water pump (not a toothed roller) do something similar locally (lots of stripped teeth at the crank gear), but there was real obvious evidence of the water pump seizure.

 

the belt fuzz was on the tensioner side of the crank cog. The oil pump spins easily as well as the waterpump. Passenger cam could rotate back and forth, but drivers side cam did not. I will get a closer look at it tonight.

no high torque starter..... just stock.

 

Only stock part on the car.

Sterling,
If you need help on the car, you know I'm willing.....just give me a call

 

Thanks everyone for the offers to help. I got the drivers cam cover off, and the variocam chain tensioner pad broke, and got wedged onto the exhaust cam teeth.

 

Sterling... happy it wasn't worse. Makes sense now eh?

 

How the hell did this happen? They are all OE 968 Porsche parts right?

 

I'm not sure....Shame on Porsche for not testing it on a 6.5 liter V8 that revs to 7K RPM's

 

That pad looks like it was made to fit around the sprocket
Isn't this an occasional problem with 968s? I vaguely remember something about their tensioners.

If there's anything I can do to help I'll be here for you.

 

thats a bummer Sterling,
I hope that there are not any pistons damaged

 

I guess the silver lining is that I started collecting parts to replace the variocam about 3 years ago.... I have heads with 968 intake valves cleaned bagged and ready to go, Simard billet gun drilled cams, Ott ITB's all ready to bolt on... I even have the headgaskets..... In the next few weeks I will be mocking up fuel lines, as well as an airbox, and fabbing up a custom cross brace.

 

How long had that pad been in the engine?
It has the brown color of a very old pad or long interval oil changes.
But then again the cam gears are very brown with broken teeth also.

Your car is pretty brown also...............

Still sucks man.

 

Hmmm I don't see any broken teeth.......Pads were new when I built the engine several years ago. The cams were finished with a copper like finish and parkerizing on the lobes...

They looked like this when new

 

Looks like the tooth at about the one oclock position is broken, and it may just be the picture on both, but it sure looks like a lot of deposits on the cam, but I see no deposits on the cam bearings, so it may just be the lighting.

EDIT: picture when sharpened and lightened show the teeth not broken.
Sorry for giving you a WTF moment buddy.

 

no worries... the cams are likely to hang on the wall and never be used again.... everything from the head gaskets on up are going to be replaced....

 

Sterling. Do your variocam heads use triple square or allen head bolts to hold the bearing caps down. Looks like allen head but tough to tell with the oil in them.