doesnt our own 93Pony spec his cams by the vavle timing events? i've yet to see much in terms of results though. Bowtie4life is the only dyno i've seen and while it puts out great power for a small cam 220 duration its not anything i havent seen out of a B1/T1, tr220, tr224, ect.

 

If you have money to throw away then go for it. If I am spending $350 + on something I want to know that it works and meets my expectations. What is the policy if someone wants a custom cam and you design it and it doesn't work well. Do they get their money back? If you or someone else designs a great cam and is proven then I would buy it. I would say if you cam design is so great and superior then comeout with your own line. If they are that good then you will make a lot of money. Same goes with heads, unless the vendor produces a proven product, there aren't going to sell very many. Please do not take this out of context. I am no cam expert. I am just a consumer and these are my thoughts.

 

Agreed. I'm more conservative, and would prefer to go with a proven combo. I'm not concerned about being the fastest car out there, someone is always quicker. Predictable and consistent results are what I look for. I'm not saying that Ed, or anyone else can't provide and custom tailored cam and put down good #'s. Ed's point about some people not posting their results are good too. Who saw that big power turbo car coming? Street racers don't post #'s either. Ed you can put this argument to rest by specing a cam for a car that already has an "off the shelf cam". If you know the flow numbers, port volume, and all the particulars of the motor you should be able to grind a cam that puts down superior #'s according to your posts. I, and I'm sure many others, would love to see what the difference would be.

Bruce

 

I LOVE to change parts on my car.. I'd do this and if it shows a great improvement over what I have in my car now, I'd even pay you for services and the cost of the cam. If it doesn't perform as planned, I'll pull it out and send it back to you and no money will change hands. Let me know what you think about this Ed.

 

Ed and Chris like many other folks out there understand they "why", of designing a cam a certain way. If you go back and look at Vizards article, one of the shops they recommend is More Performance, the other is Motor Machine.

Here is a post from over on Corvette forum by TXNC5. Look at what Motor Machine recommended to him...

Here are the VE's for that cam

Quick and Dirty Cam Calculator Spreadsheet
0.006 0.050
Intake Duration - ID 292 257
Exhaust Duration - ED 292 257
Lobe Center Angle - LCA (also known as LSA) 106 106
Intake Centerline - ICL 102 102


Intake Valve opens - IVO 44 26.5
Intake Valve closes - IVC 68 50.5
Exhaust Valve Opens - EVO 76 58.5
Exhaust Valve Closes - EVC 36 18.5
Exhaust Centerline - ECL 110 110
Overlap 80 45


No one is saying the LS1 shops are a bunch of bad guys. But you have to look at it this way. You have a certain set of tradeoffs when you move around valve events. Folks are fixated that LSA has to be a certain way. You simply have to relaize that LSA is a byproduct, and not the determining factor.

Go back and read what I told you about Sam down in Australia. He paid no attention to what anyone else was doing in terms of cam design. He applied what he knew about ENGINES and ordered about 50 cams of various lobe size and LSA. He built his own adjustable timing set and his own 2 piece timing cover so he could adjust advance on the cam easily. After a ton of pulls he found what he feels are some good cam specs. On top of that he's tuned them, and the cars make good power, and they idle great.

I remember talkign with Ed on the phone about a cam he did for a Mustang guy. He sent the cam to the guy and he got a call back saying "We wanted a cam for an injected motor, not a carb'd motor". He told them "That is a cam for an injected motor" ( I think it was a 108 LSA when conventional thinking said 112 or 114 ). The guy said there was no way it would work. Guess what, he put it in, and it worked great, idled great, and made great power. Who'd have believed it...

 

It is personality type, the A's are going to buy Plasma TV's when they hit the market. . .$20K, the D's are going to buy them 4 years later at $2500. I'm about a C.
I'm with Pewter as a consumer, I need to see it 95% of the time. . the other 5% I will experiment. But as far as customer base, my customers are A's. . .LETS TRY IT!!! Someone posted here in this thread that they will try parts to get the edge. Those guys are the ones that perform like roller coasters. . .sometimes fast and when they are they are real fast. . . sometimes slow. . .slow but still with the pack. A's and D's are both needed as customers.
I have some 2 barrel cams that I know work at several different tracks across the nation, I refer to these as baselines. If a customer wants something that is proven to run good. I'll send him a shelf "Baseline" camshaft. Less money. But if he want's a specific cam ground for a customers combo, then it is a custom.

Like I said, it takes all types, room for all of us. Heck I don't own a drag car, don't own circle track car, fastest thing I have is an M, but my customers still support me.

Chris

 

I see cams from a different perspective than some of the posters and that is that the feel or streetability of the cams is really important to most of these guys. I can spec a cam right now that will beat all of the shelf stuff right now but most on this board will not be satisfied with the idle and the surging at low rpms with stock EFI.

Also in reality most of the combos on here or the Corral ARE very similar and a custom cam is best but not usually incredibly different although some are. I have seen little difference in cams when they're this close in specs on the dyno or the track as compared to other mods but then I already usually have a cam in the ballpark too. Cams are VERY important but still I see a lot of guys on here overly wrapped up in them and even changing cams 5 times with virtually no change in performance sometimes! I guess that's what it takes in the end to find just the right one but sometimes I wonder?

At X rpm Na you are only going to trap so much compression period but the rest of the personality of the cam is harder to estimate with the computerized stuff. I want to say that we've only changed cams a few times at the school but have picked up 70 HP in the last year and none was really from the cam. Of course again we have a cam that's really close as Jud has spec'd out a few over the last 30 years.

 

I can say this with certainty that most of the folks out there that read our board are looking for results that they can work off of. Fact of the matter is that most folks won't really go for a custom spec'd cam because they are worried about the results. And Eric's last point is very accurate, we are more concerned with driveability. So there is a market for the custom grinder who is can pick anything for anyone but our community but our community needs to see some proof. Again custom cams for LS1's appeared in the middle of 1999 so we are in the fifth year of our scene. And furthermore what will work for an 93-97 LT1 or a 347ci Mustang is not necessarily what will work or is needed in a stock bottom end LS1. In the end we can't generalize like that, the LS1 makes more power with less camshaft than a comparable LT1 or stroked out 5.0.

 

I agree that you can't generalize on any certain engine's cam working in another, unless those two engines share similar characteristics such as intake tract length, displacement, and I/E flow %. In that case a compelling case could be made to look at similar cam designs.

Lets say a 347in Ford motor that is similar in the critical factors to an LS1, could you look to proven cam designs, I would certainly think you could...

As for a custom cam. My big beef is that folks get all wrapped up in just LSA, and thats all. Lets look at the two big issues idle and drivability.

If you narrow the LSA you're going to get overlap, plain and simple. As I have personally witnessed proper idle can be achieved even with much bigger cams than we run in the states, and I'm not referring to just Speed Density tuning. Sam will do MAF tunes, its just easier in SD. I won't give away his tricks, but he showed me how its done, and what he's doing made sense to me. The key is dynoing (and tuning) under load, and the ability to vary load. No one in the states has an Eddy Current dyno, so you can't chart load vs TPS vs MAP vs gm/Sec. But I did post a link on how to build your own in the dyno section.

Now, drivavbility. Whats the big issue. its having to "two foot" around. I know EXACTLY what folks are referring to here. I have seen it, and I have driven them. But, here is something to think about.. The exhaust VE's are the most important on these setups.
Simply put, on an N/A motor the intake aircharge is not assisted. (leaving wave dynamics of the aircharge out for a moment).
After the combustion stroke there is tremendous pressure in the cylinder. As soon as the exhaust valve cracks open it flows a LOT of air. It's basically boosted out of the cylinder if you want to look at it like this. Having the exhaust valve open too early not only costs heat (power) velocity through the exhaust runners, it also empties the cylinder before the intake valve is open enough to take advantage of the pressure differential. (in a limited overlap/smogable camshaft this is especially true) This causes exhaust reversion is one of the key factors in surging problems. By the airflow reversing course it is loosing a lot of it's inertia. Typically this is overcome before peak torque however. So only low-speed issues are present. At the track these motors are always above 4500rpm so this does not affect track times too much.

Stilll....there is significant power lost by allowing reversion. So it makes sense to open the exhaust valve a little later increase the overlap a bit. By adding advance into the camshaft this makes the problem even worse as now you're opening the exhaust a few more degrees earlier..... shortening the effectiveness of the intake unless you have significant overlap flow to over come this.
Simply put, advancing a cam makes it more exhaust bias relative to TDC. Retarding a cam makes it more intake bias relative to TDC.

So, when you are using the 112LSA/108 ICL with a big cam, you are simply making the problem worse and worse... The reversion and surging gets worse and worse. It'd be neat to see what happens to some of these surging cars if you retarded them 4 or 8 degrees. Go back and look int he cam thread where I showed if you shoot for a specific set of valve events as lobes get larger LSA gets narrower.

 

PSJ,
I have to respectfully disagree with you on your statement, "In the end we can't generalize".. . . for a hundred years the combustable engine has been air/fuel/spark. Simple as that. A pump. . .nothing more nothing less. Camshafts are based on these simple parameters, not if its a GM, Ford, Chrysler, years dates or anything like that. If this was true, EEI should be still building Fords and not competitive Chryslers. Scranton brothers should have stayed with a Ford instead of going to the Imports. IMO I would rather go to someone who can make "anything run", to me that says he can make power. . .Period.
The sponsors here have done a hell of a job getting the customer useable power. Baseline cams that produce. I think Gomers intent on this was to say, is it worth it to get a Professionally designed cam? Wether it be one of the sponsers here or someone else, if done so, yes it is worth some more power under the curve.

My .02

Chris

 

You know, guys, I don't see how you quantify "good" of "bad". What would you consider better or worse for a "shelf cam" to a "custom cam". I don't think you have a criteria for judging. If a 224 cam made X HP and a 231 cam made "Y" hp, how would you tell the difference. After all of the discussion, intelligent as it is, you have no yardstick, even if you had all the numbers! Just my HO.

 

This is close to what I think. I divide us into two groups, with a little overlap.

Group 1 wants to go fast. They want to do it right and to the best of their ability. They understand that you can never be a leader if you follow. They are the ones who sprayed their pistons and heads with VHT and baked them in the oven. The ones who built smaller headers and went faster, the ones who didn't follow the advice of the cam grinder. And they probably don't talk about the specs on the cam they did choose.

Group 2 wants a car that is faster than his neighbors or faster than it used to be or ... but doesn't want to spend (notice I did not say waste) his money experimenting.

The main thing is that there is no shame in belonging to one group or the other. I don't think a person in group 2 should buy a custom cam, and no one should woof on them for making that choice.

 

I've sold very few LS1 custom profiles....for the reasons in this thread (A mustang guy can't make an LS1 go fast) & a few others.
1. I don't advertise
2. I don't run a buisness. I do this for fun in my spare time. I have the knowledge to make some pretty nice camshafts for those that want them....I'm not out to make a quick buck, just help those who want to go a little faster. I now work for a local Mustang performance shop & have very little time to concentrate on the LS1. As of late, I send people to EDC for customs.
3. I turn away 50% (if not more) of the cam inquiries I get. Cost per HP gain mainly. The gains from a custom profile are not always worth the cost IMO. A lot of guys come to me with TR & other aftermarket cams looking for gains of 25+hp from a custom profile. Gains like that require significant increases in overlap, which require piston notching & significant valvetrain upgrades. Add up the cost of rocker arms, valvesprings, retainers, locks, custom cam, new headgaskets, etc, & the labor to notch pistons & most don't want to spend that kind of $$$ & time for 25hp.

Others that have my cams (& are happy with them) don't post much on the internet. & still others I've not heard anything back at all.
Aside from Bowtiemans, I've had 2 others give me feedback on they're results. No track times (which sucks), just dyno #'s.
One made 383RWHP with a 226/224 110LSA profile, stock pre-241 casting heads, Weiand aluminum intake, longtubes, off-road Y, loudmouth exhaust, & a lid. Not exaclty good #'s, but I'm not too sure that intake is a good match to the LS6....I've heard they tend to leak & for certain they retain a lot of heat.

The other guy I got some feedback from already had an aftermarket cam in his vette. He swapped out his 222/222 114LSA cam for my custom 228/228 112LSA & gained 15RWHP & a lot of TQ (30+) through an unlocked converter with no other changes. Gains were across the board from 3K to redline.

Aside from power gains, none have complained to me about unruley drivability issues. A few before tuning, but zero problems once tuned.

-Shaun

 

I really don't fully understand VEs, so I also heeded the advice of the article in GMHTP and used Motor Machine & Supply...here's their specs for my 346 with MTI Stage II LS6 heads:

Intake Lift 0.822
Intake Lobe Lift 0.484
Exhaust Lift 0.73125
Exhaust Lobe Lift 0.43
Overlap 55
Cam Advance 4
L.C.A. 110
Intake Duration 275
Intake Centerline 107
Exhaust Duration 278
Intake Opens 30.5
Intake Closes -64.5
Exhaust Opens -74
Exhaust Closes 24
Est. Peak Torque 464
Est. Peak Power 451

Anyway...as mentioned in GMHTP, this cam master program generates "theoretical" figures that may not be mechanically attainable. They told me, "use the maximum lift that your valve train will handle" and they also guaranteed that I would have no Piston to Valve clearance problem...his quote was, "the piston will be 2/3s of the way down the bore before the valve hits maximum lift." As it turns out, I needed to flycut .050 and Mikey (Rapid) had to install the cam 5 degrees retarded, otherwise the car would have peaked at around ~5200 RPM. My point is, buyer beware...these guys probably know SBCs etc. very well, but they don't seem well versed in LS1s, however, More Perf. uses this same program, I'm sure their results are probably more appropriate for LS1s...FWIW, the MM&S cam made 421 rwhp/388 rwtq with valve float at ~6400 RPM. My lesson learned: Stick to the LS1 shops...my next cam (hopefully this spring) will be spec'd by Mikey...

 

well,a friend of mine called one of the shops that spec out cams,i don't know for sure which one,but they use a computer data base also.anyway,he told them he wanted a good street/strip grind for his 02 a4 with all bolt ons,stock heads,and 2800 stall converter. they told him just to use an off the shelf 224 grind,it was one of the best out there for his combo.so i'm sure a lot of testing was/is done on most off the shelf grinds.it's when you start to deviate from the norm(strokers,h/c,FI,etc.)that a spec cam would be benefical.just my .02

 

A buddy of mine got a custom spec'd cam for his '00 TA (M6). His mods are: lid, ported TB, LT headers, ORY, cutout, Flowmaster.

He still has stock heads, LS1 intake, and no underdrive pulleys.

With tuning and the custom cam, the car dynoed 382 RWHP. With an LS6 intake and pulleys, I figure he hits 400, or close to it. Not bad for stock heads, but shelf-grind cams have been dynoing over 400 for a while now.

The cam specs were nothing radical: 224/230 duration, .54x lift, 114 LSA.

He had it speced out for a specific powerband he wanted, not for maximum power regardless of RPMs.