KTM 790 Cheese - FA Part 0 

You need to put “cams” or “camshafts” in the title so it appears in Google searches when people are looking.

KTM in a nutshell, here's your bike now f off, it ran when it left the factory ! !

It’s funny how none of the usual bike reviewers are talking about this, I guess they are worried about never being invited to a bike launch ever again.

I look forward to the testing. Thanks for your efforts

KTM stands for Keep Training Mechanics, because of all the impending failures

I'm glad to see someone showing what the direction of flow is. Seeking real answers about the camshafts. Maybe it's not as important as I think and should not be overlooked but could the fact that some lobes are chewed and others not be due to improper valve clearances on some and proper on others. Also not to be overlooked are potential variances in cam follower's material. Also since the cams are an assembly of sections those sections could be manufactured by different contractors, shipped to yet another sub contractor for assembly. Looking forward to the next follow-up video.

Maybe KTM got hold of some schematics of 82-86 Honda VF750 engines and thought that will work.

Open valve clearence to 0.25mm on intake and 0.30-0.40mm because valves tighten up during first 1-5km causing valves to have too small clearence casuing oil film to be wiped from camshafts causing camshaft failures... Best Regards!

Same with 890 engines as well. It’s not made with cheese, it’s made with Chinese tofu…..😂

my god, so much usless rambling.... got bored and annoyed faster than a camshaft starts spin on engine start...

Almost a class action case for ktm on this

Thank you for taking this on! Obviously KTM is not taking accountability and is trying to deny this. We spend a lot of money for our motorcycles. Also like the approach you are taking and not jumping to conclusions. Taking this approach will make it impossible for KTM to deny anything. I just hope they don't pay you off and you leave us... having said this a lot of people here don't understand the importance of oil volume, in addition to oil pressure. The cams don't need an incredible amount of oil pressure. And they don't even need an incredible amount of oil volume. There are so many things that could be causing this problem it's not even funny. And I've heard no one mentioned even valve springs I'm not saying that that's what it is I'm just throwing up and using possibilities as an example.

I've got a 2023 KTM 890 Adventure and I'll be following up on these ongoing issues and looking forward to seeing if this is ever resolved. Great video and I'm glad I subscribed and also joined your channel as a patron!

Here is something interesting to think about: Went to pick-up my bike after a service, bike was idling on sidestand, dealer said they have to do it after oil service to check oil level after reaching working temp, also said that they need to check if cooling fan does its job.......if it is the cam on the right-side of engine failing, it could be that not enough oil is getting to the "highest" part with excessive idling on sidestand? I never do a warm-up idle before I ride, I start and immediately start riding, time will tell I guess.

KTM... Ready to Replace..

Just got my 790 Duke 2018, back from service at 38,000 miles. Cams worn out, not as bad as in the video but need replacing. Waiting for reply form dealer who contacted ktm hoping they will do good will warranty even tho bike is 6 years old now. but some people getting good will cam replacements from KTM since the issue is more and more common. People wont know the cams are destroyed unless they open the engine for valve check which is at 18k miles. There were two other 790s at the dealer with destroyed cams, one at 10k miles, other one at 20k miles.

Will be interested in the conclusion here, great and explanatory video 👍

Cams are manufactured with seperate lobes onto a tube then they use hydraulics to expand the tube locking the lobes in place. Tech is about 20 years old.

The prematurely worn camshafts is not only occurring on KTMs but on some late model BMWs. They too have also required camshafts to be replaced on low mileage examples. Perhaps now these engines and components are now produced in the PRC the quality of same has suffered. Pretty sad really for both of these manufacturers as it will deter many potential buyers.

Quite a lot of cams in the car world are press fit these days, when cambelts/chains fail, they knock the lobes out of position

An introduction to the cast of characters in a murder mystery play.

Based on what i saw my bet is its mostly oiling issue and 99% of that damage happens when idling. oil jets don't spray oil far enough to touch lobes and very soon u got metal on metal. When riding and oil hot should be fine

What is your opinion about KTM (GasGas, Husqvarna, Raymon...) as a company and the quality of their bikes? I worked for a KTM dealer and I personally think their bikes really are great riding machines as long as you don't own them. The problems I've experienced on those bikes are comically criminal. I can remember the clutch slave clyinder was a problem for years as the big rubber gasket could break and get leaky resulting in a non functioning clutch lever. Leaving you stranded at the worst possible moments. I once test rode a brand new bike that was getting sold and this happened. They had to pick me up with a van. They had so many problems from the start that I never experienced with Suzukis (same dealer was also a Suzuki dealer). This problem was eventually fixed around 2020-2021 when I can remember correctly when they finally came out with new cylinders with smaller gaskets for the 701 models. They had faulty welds on the exhaust manifolds especially the Husqvarna 701 Supermotos. There were holes in there! Electrical problems that never went away. We had a customer who bought a brand new HQV 701 Vitpilen and in just a few months he had to visit us 5-6 times for electrical problems. We couldn't figure out what was wrong. The bike was picked up by KTM eventually and the whole electrcial system was replaced. As compensation he got a brand new rear tyre.... What a joke. We also had breaking rocker arms in 701 SM engines. Do you know how many troubles we had with brand new Suzukis during the same time frame? 0. Zero!

Guys over at total seal piston rings, lake speed jr has gone over what causes cam wipe and it's usually what oil that is being used /oil failure. And a quick google on ktm owners and the people getting life out of that engine are changing oil frequently or using additive. It's almost like the protective properties of the oil are seprating out or breaking down over time not miles or hydrocarbon exposure. The standard ktm is asking is the minimum requred for oil ma2=grippy clutch API SN, SM, SL. API SN. API SN has zero zinc and mororex has very little in other additives. If the bike was sitting 30-60 days the oil would go acidic and that damage would be almost expected with just an ester based also explains the oil weaping past seals.

KTM is having major money problems , they dont give a shit about all this right now, then sales suck and the whole thing comes crashing down. DO NOT BUY ONE !!!

Same on my Husqvarna 701. Camshaft colored blue and rocker arm and finger followers have significant wear at 8600km

i heard about pressed on cam lobes in the newer EURO6 2.0TDI engines, also saw a few YT videos where the mechanics replaced the valves and other parts in the head after a timing belt snapped, only to find out that it was still out of time after the repair, because the lobes actually spun on the cams

What strikes me is how bad KTM handle this problem which triggers me not to buy a ktm anymore.

It's like fun health class with motorcycles. Lesson is pull out of Chinese squirter names Cam after you reach the shift stuff. Doesn't matter if you're stiff 75 year old! 😂😂 Actually its a great video.

What superb video, explanation and general work. You’re a clever guy. When you have a conclusion, you should make a public fuss because your talented and people should know.

Classic Pony Power! Looking forward to your detailed analysis. It's not particularly clear on my phone screen, but is there bluing/discolouration on those failed lobes? Would that be caused by the heat from the excessive friction that caused the failure?

I know you said to keep the ‘oil feeding issue’ to my self. But. I do have a theorie. The cams that are getting damaged like this are mainly the intake ones. Which are away from where the oil feeds up through the head. Now the oil pressure that this bike has is stupidly low. 1.4 bar at idle with coolant temp being 70C and 2.4 bar at 6000rpm with the coolant temp being 70C. This may just be a case of where the ‘normal’ oil pressure from factory is to low. That in combination with long oil change intervals of 15k km and the use of 10w50 (degrades rather quickly to a thinner viscosity than a smaller range oil) this making the oil thin, and getting the oil pressure even lower. Why however only 1 set of the intake cams is destroyed may be due to a small blokkage or something. Usually the ones that are destroyed are also the ones further away from the return so that may play a part in it aswell (pure speculation). I have also heard from KTM that the oil jets on the first gen 790 (2018-2020) used loctite on those and from factory came with to much loctite. That loctite broke of and blocked the jet. That was their theory. However, the 890s and modern 790s have a filter in the return catching that and stopped using loctite with the jets so that theory is out of question. Maybe the fix is installing a different oil pump spring (saw some posts of people using 990 superduke (old model, not new one) springs to boost up the pressure. I forgot what the exact pressure reading was. Or the fix is just using 15w50 so it doesn’t degrade as fast or even 15w60. That thicker oil we often used in the 690 because they had quite the issue with oil consumption and rattling can chain tensioners due to a lack of pressure. The 790/890 don’t have oil consumption problem but do have the can chain tensioner problem of it rattling (not just on startup). People think it’s a chain tensioner that’s faulty. Usually it’s just a case of new o-rings, pushing old oil out and using 15w60 oik instead. Here is my theory. Love to get your ideas on this.

Here's a couple of videos showing good and bad oil supply to the cams... ru-vid.comugFRK7ScmSg?si=F8LSwhocMPth5_7q ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-3O-nySmIYFk.htmlsi=w1y8xt-go6ehWmhU

Dealer did my valve check at around 19K miles on my 2021 KTM 890 Adventure. No premature cam wear reported to me. Currently at 26K miles. I hope I have a good batch of cam lobes or glad I keep my oil level on the very upper range of oil sight glass. I battled with coolant leak since owning bike. Finally got dealer to change my coolant thermostat housing and thermostat and open an Out of Warranty claim. Never had these issues with my other bikes ( Yamaha and bMW ).

KTM - AKA "Known To Malfunction" 🤣

Awesome video. Love your work! At last, we can see and discuss possible real causes for this problem. I will for follow with interest

This made me wonder about two things, both heat related. Cams used to be solid. With these hollow, pressed together cams, there is a lot less mass available to accept and dissipate heat. But lots of other brands use hollow cams without problems. The other best question is regarding oil. Besides lubrication, oil picks up heat from the metal parts it is running through and over. I wonder the way the oil flows through the head isn’t moving enough oil through it to act properly as a cooling medium.

Love the workbench FA videos, can’t wait to see the result

Honda Vf chocolate cam revisited?

890 2023 SMT. 20.000 km in 12 months, cams looking ok, no wear

Solution is to just go for KTM 2 strokes. No cams, no problems.

Interesting. Could be as simple as the heat used to assemble the cam has normalised, and killed, the heat treatment case hardening? The rockwell hardness test will show it. HArd part is getting a good sample of un-destroyed cams to test and collect data to show it/prove it.

Yes. Love Failure Analysis videos. Famous Austrian Cheese

I hope KTM doesn't go all Boeing on you

love how thorough you are, love these more than the dellboy critiques, but you do make me smile🙂 if i link back can i use some clips for a vid i am working on? cheersv i can link back to your channel or video,

Wild theory. The way they pin the cam lobes on result in poor heat transfer. When bike heats up, valve clearance becomes zero. Could be the ok cams are closer to cooling source.

Dirty Garage Guy, sponsored by: Royal Enfield, Harley Davidson, Murican OHV V8 and sugar free Red Bull.

KTM790/890 Nordon 901 Will the new 990ADV parallel twin be the same ? time will tell.

I have a work mate (mechanic) who has pulled a piece of tapping swarf out of an oil feed squirter. Was in the head on a completely different motorcycle though.

I found out my exhaust camshaft lobe wore down because I didn't have any power after 8500rpm. I had the exhaust left lobe on cylinder 1 distroyed because of a blocked oil jet. Removed the jet (which is 0.5mm in diameter) and found a non metalic piece blocking the hole. It was something like a piece of an o'ring or gasket maker about the size of a sand grain. My duke is the 1st gen 2018, before KTM decided to put the filter on the cylinder head in 2nd gen hmmm, also the new cam followers for 890's are wider, just saying.

Certainly looking forward to part two .., thank you Sir for delving into this awful mess from KTM

Are all the years of 790 engines struggling with the same issues? I am looking at getting a 2024 and curious if they have silently corrected it yet?

Matt, isnt it clearly a oiling issue? if it was bad harderning the cams shouldnt have heating discoloration right? (love to see this vids back)

Matt why they dont put bearings on camshafts like on the crank? Not enough load to need them?

You can report about my engine concept. It is practically a type of 5-stroke engine with no dead space channels and no after-cycle

Have you got an update ready to go yet?

thanks...I've subscribed and look forward to the next episode.

It's CALLED CHEEP CHINESE STEEL, 🤷👎🥱

When can we expect an update video?

50/50 mix of oil and tuff black will make any engine run forever !

juicy investigation ...looking forward!

Katastrophic Terminal Motors

"I have never seen cams this bad" check out classic Norton Comanndos!

I cant believe that there isnt any bearings...seems sub standard to what the automotive industry does.

How many miles were on the KTM camshaft shown? Not sure if I missed it if you mentioned it. Thanks and great video

No options ok Matt. But, my 04 ktm 950 had the same problem. Apparently 04/05 's had a bad batch of cams. Manufactured in the 4th quarter production run and shipped to the east coast. Fix... $ 800 and six months wait from megacycle cams, i got the 1st one. Its now somewhere in northern California. Signed ; Grumpy old punkrocker. Tucson USA.

Any quality bike maker would chase this down to either design or manufacture. It seems that the camshaft bearings are good implying satisfactory oil supply. Beyond that that the feed to the cam lobes looks the most likely culprit on the basis that it would be odd that heat treating would be good on one end and not the other. KTM should have identified the issue and had a recall to rectify. Even BMW do this. Reputation is everything and KTM more than most need to get this sorted. I have a low mile 890, a 10,000 690 and a 701. It bothers me greatly that KTM group is burying its head in the sand!

I presume the magnetic oil drain bolt would be covered in metal shavings as this problem developed! Are there other tell tale signs?

My guess is the oil is just flowing where it finds it easiest routes. If the outlets aren't balanced, ie the ease of flow to each outlet is the same, it will gush out some and leave others underfed. I'd test it at 5/10/15 psi not 20/25 where it'll come out everywhere.

It’s it bad I’ve done 3 cams on my KTM 690 it’s a 2013 I’ve had bearings failed & excessive wear on the lobes. I’ve got my old ones

Honda V45/V65 Sabre and Magna owners, first gen Intercepter owners are all pointing at the screen going "I remember this!"

Wheelie bikes can have some oil feed problems. Like the Honda grom. No oil to oilpump when wheelie.

You can see how it's discolored from the heat where it's worn out. Either it was running dry or something had failed and put it under so much pressure that it wiped the oil clean off and cooked the cam. That's my two cents 😁

This will be more interesting than spanish telenovela 😂.

All that and it's just an oil flow issue! What if KTM intentionally designed it this way, but in their testing all the bikes last 40-50k mi... they figure a lot of those engines wouldn't see that mileage for years, and it would hardly be the scandal it is. But at 15-16k mi, it happens too soon!! I propose that it was an intentional design failure, but unexpectedly more effective in failing than expected.

5:10 Ya Mrs running her mouth again?

Thanks for the explainations. For me same problem for the same cams (intake at the end of the shaft)

Krapp They Make = KTM 😂😂

26:50 just for that comment about idiots thinking they know better than engineers who designed something u deserve like 👌🏿

I think the problem lies with the cam lobes not being heat treated deep enough. It appears that they have failed due to the hardened surface being softer than the other lobes and thats worn off exposing the softer steel bellow. Kinda like the old Polaris engines that had a similar problem but it was a mixture of oil supply pressure and crap cams

Thanks for you video. It,s good for owner ktm 790/890.

Man, this is great - really interesting. Proper Cluedo his - subscribed! I am hoping there is a solution otherwise I might have to swap to a Kwakazaki :D

I had to replace the cams in my 2020 790 adv at 30,000km. who knows how long these ones will last. Love riding the bike but not sure I will keep it long enough to find out.

I cleaned the bench 😢

Chinesium is some good stuff.

Pity we can't see what the state of the valves/tappet surfaces are in. Could be they are contributing to excess wear on cam lobes.

Has anyone checked to see if the CFmoto production line has been using leftover tofu-dreg, instead of wax, in casting the galleries?

keep yer nickers on, we`ll get to it

That was a really interesting video - I am really looking forward to this series. I have a nuked MT07 engine in bits. If you want anything from it to compare or chop up. I would be more than happy to give you any bits that you wanted.

Matt. Any opinion about the actual profile of the cams? They are not exactly conventional. Could it be that due to ramp design the surface speed/acceleration/loading between cam and follower is far greater than a conventional cam profile? If that was the case any weakness in lubrication or surface hardness would show up pretty quickly. Perhaps KTM should have adopted a roller follower like on the 690 but cheaped out? All if, buts and maybes I know BUT (another one) if it was just about lube and hardness then surely this would have been fixed long ago.

I was searching Facebook for ktm 790 owners group since I wanted to buy a 790 adventure either used or new and I fell on the well known camshaft failure group. So I stopped looking at that motorcycle at all since I dont trust them...

I have a KTM 990 ADV but would have considered upgrading to a 790 but for this issue, a fair bit of time in this vid was devoted to the oiling system for the journals but are they an issue? Or is it just the cam lobes that fail? Or does one possibly lead to the other? Failures of cam journals in heads were common on bikes like the GB500/XL500 and derivatives and with a known root cause, unlikely to be the case here but you never know (tip don’t assume the oil pressure is always present at the head, especially at cold start up).

Will be interested to see your findings

Very interesting

You are absolotly right about getting more data. Hopefully you get more examples, fotos etc. 👍 Looking forward to more videos 😀

For me KTM have outsourced their cam manufacturing and case hardening processes, I think oil supply is a bit on a non issue in this case. Their manufacturer has used cheaper materials at the bottom end of KTMs spec range, lower carbon content steel and bare minimum hardening to save a few quid.

I’ve got an engine that’s blown a valve stem into the piston and spark plug , just had valve service 250 miles before it blew , lobes shown to have pitting , 19 k , same as shown

The finger followers are DLC coated ... could that possibly make them harder than the cams and contribute to wear? Also the 790 followers are different from those found in the 890, both are the same length but the 890 ones are 0.6 mm wider (8.1mm vs 7.5mm) ... dunno how much difference that makes to spreading the forces involved but it seems the 790 followers maybe put more stress on the cams .. 🤷‍♂

Why is that some gears feel like they're ready to be throttled and made to go wheeee and others don't? Is that just in my head? I sometimes wonder if l'm babying the inline-4s l've had.

Matt Could it be bad batch of cam lobes and crappy oil feed? So a double problem.