I recently tore my heads off my LT1 based 383 because the heads were not torqued correctly, making quite a mess. As I was loading the heads into my car to take up to the engine builder to be checked and cleaned up, I noticed three valve springs were broken right under the spring retainer.

These springs are the Comp '918 beehive springs that were recommended with the XFI-282 cam, which has about 0.575" lift on intake and exhaust. Maximum lift rating on the '918 springs is 0.600".

These springs appear to have a flaw in them- where they are ground flat at the top, the material goes from thick to thin and then back to thick again. Guess where they broke? On the thin spot. I didn't have my camera with me to take pics, but I'd be pretty wary of this design.

One of Comp's valve retainers also failed to hold back oil, so now I'm wondering WTF is up with Comp?

It is interesting that Comp now recommends the 26986 beehive springs with my cam (they are a new product). It's always something...

There have been a ton of 918 failures. Comp outsourced their springs to Mexico, what a big mistake. I have heard this situation has been resolved. If you still trust Comp they will probably send you a new set of springs. If not and you still want to run a bee hive springs contact PAC, they are the original manufacturers of the bee hives.

PAC 918's

As stated there were a boatload of 918 spring failures. Lots of threads on it around last Spring-Summer. A lot of people switched to the PAC springs as a result.

Comp eventually acknowledged the problem (several months after people started bringing it to their attention) and should replace them for you.

Well, that is good to hear they will get replaced by Comp.

They were purchased right around that time, so it fits. Thanks for the info!

EDIT: I did a little searching about this, since I obviously had no idea (I did not spend too much time on the forums for the last 12 months or so) and it sounds like the "revised" or "fixed" 918 had a blue stripe painted on them. Mine have that stripe! So obviously they are not fixed...

Sounds like getting the originals from PAC is the way to go. I'd gladly pay extra to a company that is not willing to sacrifice quality for a few bucks, especially on something as critical as valve springs! Who knows how many little bits of spring steel got washed through the engine when the springs snapped...

EDIT 2: I jumped the gun- The blue stripe 918s were the springs failing this spring/summer...

Comp makes some good stuff but due to theri size a lot of gets outsourced, you never know where its coming from.

A long, long time ago there was another problem with the comp beehives for which the blue stripe information is relevant. It is not relevant for the recent problems.

If yours were bought around last Spring-Summer, then they are probably not part of the more recent problem, either, unless they were sitting on a shelf for a while.

The problem springs were generally installed around mid 2006-early 2007. The issue came to a head around Spring-Summer 2007 just because it took that long for the number of failures to become so overwhelming that Comp couldn't ignore it any more.

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Yes.

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They were purchased between July-September of 2006, so sounds like they were part of that batch. It took a looooooong time for the builder to finish the engine!

At the very least you should get Comp to replace these springs, even if you plan on running the PAC's.

Here's even a better PAC spring.

PAC

Wow, 0.650 max lift- that is something I wouldn't mind growing in to!

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Yep that's right in the heart of the problem time period. Get comp to replace them, sell the new comps, and get the PACs.