Just took off my valve covers today, this is what I found.

 

I looks like normal friction wear to me but I'm not keen on camshafts and things because I've never personally dealt with them. My guess is it's normal.

 

Well it does have 166.5k km on it too, engines got that 5.4 knock and we pulled the covers to check and bam! Lol

 

That's not too high (around 103,000 miles) while mine is at 150K miles (so 241,400km) and about to get the phaser, guide, tensioner treatment. I think it's fine. Maybe someone else that knows more than I do about cams can comment. It kind of looks like a piece of metal or something got between it and as it rotated got scored against the metal surface it's rotating in.

 

I wouldn't say that's bad, can you can feel the damage with your finger?.. The lobes look good, so the journals are likely still decent.

 

Yeah both on the shaft and inside the cover, nail grabs a little when I scratch it

 

Got her all put back together, do you guys think running non-syn 10w30 oil will be better to run than 5w-20? My dad's friend owns a dealership here and I showed him everything, and he told me to put non-syn 10w-30 oil to thicken it up a bit and it may even get rid of my 5.4 knock? Any opinions on this?

 

30w is always better than 20w in these engines. Unless you live in an extremely cold climate.

 

Why did you take the valve covers off in the first place? And if youre worried about it get some performance cams.

 

That looks bad. Here are pics of mine at 125k.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5793u31mi4...%2056%20AM.jpg

And cam

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rp1vomucsw...%2001%20AM.jpg