Cam failure car - cost / time to repair?

[Zap]

Obviously I don't have all the details but there is a cam failed V8 close to me locally. How much does it generaly cost, and what is the approximate time commitment to do a proper rebuild? It sounds like the car was maintained, but the engine just let go due to lack of welding. I would be doing this myself, obviously. How easy / hard is it to acquire the needed parts?

I need another project like, well... I don't BUT I should really have another car and I'd consider a MTX conversion in the future...

 

[93rev2sev]

It's hard to say what will be damaged when there's a piston to valve collision. At least, new valves and guides, at most a whole new engine.

From what I've read, failure mode ranges from the cam sprocket walking a few degrees and causing the valves to bump the piston and bend a little, all the way up to complete seizure of the valvetrain with the valves stuck all the way open, resulting in broken valves bouncing around inside the chamber, doing all kinds of damage. You won't know anything until you can get the valve covers off, at least. I would be most hopeful with an engine that turned over with the starter without making too much racket. Pull the oil fill cap and see if you can see the cams turning. Pull a spark plug and see if there's any compression in any of the cylinders. If there was only light damage, hope for compression in all the cylinders on one bank.

In other words, I would suspect one would really have to get into it to estimate any particular cam failure repair

My advise would be to find an engine, have it rebuilt and welded and THEN find a cam failed car to drop it into.