The Camshaft Questionaire

[BLK 68 R/T]

so after reading this thread I am again unsure as to which brand is is best, or safest. I am finishing my 69 383 Cuda, and I want a cam that won't crap on me, and be as close as possible to the original. In other words I want the roadrunner cam, not the 330hp cam. bottom line is want to do this only once. I lost a comp cam 10 years ago, and it was a lot of work to redo the 383 in my Charger. Hughes sounds hi quality VS some Issues with other brands?

I believe Hughes used Engle cams back in the day. I don’t know who's cam cores they use now.

 

[Kern Dog]

I had to dig to find the pictures but this is the Comp Cam that I bought and returned. You can see shreds of cloth stuck to the unfinished edges of the lobes.

 

[monaco66coupe]

Thanks! that isn't good. It makes me want to pull an original from another engine here and put it in. is an original 1968 cam still be serviceable?

 

[beanhead]

I had to dig to find the pictures but this is the Comp Cam that I bought and returned. You can see shreds of cloth stuck to the unfinished edges of the lobes.

View attachment 1094590 View attachment 1094591 View attachment 1094592 View attachment 1094593

I remember that one! I've personally never had one that had crusty lobes like that, in that case I'd have sent it back too.

 

[Nate S]

so after reading this thread I am again unsure as to which brand is is best, or safest. I am finishing my 69 383 Cuda, and I want a cam that won't crap on me, and be as close as possible to the original. In other words I want the roadrunner cam, not the 330hp cam. bottom line is want to do this only once. I lost a comp cam 10 years ago, and it was a lot of work to redo the 383 in my Charger. Hughes sounds hi quality VS some Issues with other brands?

For a Roadrunner cam I’d buy it on Rock auto. They sell the Melling. All the numbers are correct and you won’t get it cheaper. Have one running in my car right now.

 

[That_Tall_Dude]

I don't think there can possibly be enough people returning used lifters to account for all of the wiped cams. But if there are truly only two manufacturers of lifters out there in the world, and one of them is not properly machining the lifter face, that would do it.

I not saying “this has to be it” or anything, but it seems like a very likely suspect and can be easily avoided if that’s a major contributor.

Here’s an estimate:

Say 1 in 50 people return old lifters as new

get 50 guys lined up doing a cam installs

can you image at least one of them returning used lifters to get a refund? I can... if that makes me an asshole... sorry

Let be optimistic and say 1/2 are flagged and stopped.

So that would be 1% of of new lifters on the self are listed as “new” but are “used”.

So every 7th a batch of new lifters for a build, if they were evenly distributed, would have one used lifter and take out a new cam

1 out 7 installs wiped out, if the assumptions above seem reasonable.

But it wouldn’t be even distributed; random is random. So what double or triple that...? 1 in 14, 1 in 21?

But if you multiply by a factor of 10, that still 1 wiped out cam for every 70 installations

and we’re going to hear about every one of them, because it’s freaking terrible

Maybe a good additional questionnaire would be to ask how many people found any “used” non-roller lifter sold as “new”?

see if the theory has evidence among us already?

Thoughts?

 

[PRHeads]

How many foundries in the US produce cam cores(at least for these old platforms)?
Then, the castings need to be roughed in to become “semi-finished” cores(this is what places like Comp and Howard’s buy to put their profiles on).
Any idea how many places in the US are doing that on cast cores?

And then there’s the flat tappet lifters.
Number of US foundries making the lifter castings?
Number of lifter manufacturers selling them for Mopars made from the USA made castings?

 

[Montclaire]

How many foundries in the US produce cam cores(at least for these old platforms)?
Then, the castings need to be roughed in to become “semi-finished” cores(this is what places like Comp and Howard’s buy to put their profiles on).
Any idea how many places in the US are doing that on cast cores?

And then there’s the flat tappet lifters.
Number of US foundries making the lifter castings?
Number of lifter manufacturers selling them for Mopars made from the USA made castings?

At this point? Maybe zero.

 

[PRHeads]

One US foundry for each.
There are two core suppliers.
Camshaft Machine and Engine Power.

If your cam supplier is using US made cores, that’s where they come from.

One lifter company is selling US made lifters for Mopars.

The point being........ for the most part....... they all come from the same place.

None of the cam companies produce their own cast flat tappet lifters or cast cam cores.