camshaft history

[nicolas]

i always wandered how and when all the different camshafts came into play in the early days. some of the ones we use now are decades old designs and will last even decades after this. maybe some just were forgotten but were widely used 'back in the day'

it would be cool to see all the different cams, but even the brands that came up and were the hot ticket then.

[Jim Ratto]

Cool post. I think it would be fun to find the guys that originally came up with "the grinds" and ask them what they had in mind for grind "X". Fun to read about some of the old gasser motors that ran the old Engle 160, etc.
Like you said, many of these old grinds are still out there clattering around today (K8!) Makes you wonder what's to come.
Personally I love hearing about the old ubiqutious 88 x 69, 88 x 74 etc that ran behind ultra close gearbox, and clicked off low 13's/high 12's in semi-street cars. And to take all that and put it in context that when all this was going on, your mom could've gone down to the local VW agency and bought a new one. Talk about an ace up your sleeve.

Questions come up... when did the FK87 come to life? And what cc motors were these cam guys thinking at the time. Seems like this was before the advent of 94 x 86+.

keep it coming....

[restojohnny]

Good'Ol Isky cams were not very common but are a great cam to use in any vintage motor in my book  [ Attachment: You are not allowed to view attachments ]

[johnl]

Sometime back I started this link:  http://cal-look.no/lounge/index.php/topic,19486.msg275315.html#msg275315  Chris Shelton, aka HOTRODSURPLUS chimed in and brought some interesting cam history and possibilities to light.  You may have to do some reading through the tread but you will possibly learn something.

[Jim Ratto]

Sometime back I started this link:  http://cal-look.no/lounge/index.php/topic,19486.msg275315.html#msg275315  Chris Shelton, aka HOTRODSURPLUS chimed in and brought some interesting cam history and possibilities to light.  You may have to do some reading through the tread but you will possibly learn something.

sorry to highjack this cool post, but another idea for a fun topic would be "Then vs Now." or... "How it used to be done, and how far things have or haven't come"
Maybe in some detail, go thru what was involved in building a motor like Mahaffey's 2180 in 1970 vs what is possible today, with advent of internet and aftermarket, ready to run cases, CNC heads, etc.

[Jim Gillum Racing]

I remember back in the early 60's a fellow named Dempsey Wilson in Hawthorne, CA was grinding cams.  He would grind you anything you wanted.  All you had to do was ask him what his opinion was and he would go through hundreds of cam profile plates and pick the ones you wanted and put them on his cam grinder and go to town.  Nice guy.

[deano]

As far as I know, the FK87 and FK89 grinds both came from testing that Paul and Mark Schley did will using the dyno at Vittone's Race Shop in Riverside. That would have been around 1972ish...

[modnrod]

I remember back in the early 60's a fellow named Dempsey Wilson in Hawthorne, CA was grinding cams.  He would grind you anything you wanted.  All you had to do was ask him what his opinion was and he would go through hundreds of cam profile plates and pick the ones you wanted and put them on his cam grinder and go to town.  Nice guy.

On topic, sort of, I just got an email back from a cam guy saying the custom cam I ordered had "left the building". 

I wanted something a bit different, and without going into too much detail on other cam grinders both here in Australia and the US/Euro, an old very well respected company came through.
Schneider Cams have been around since the early 50s, and I can't recommend them highly enough for their customer service, Kevin Cantrell went through his own list of profiles, modded a couple of profiles to suit, and hey presto!

Free plug for an old cam company..........thanks Kevin.
http://schneidercams.com/solidliftercamshafts-18.aspx

[Jon]

Cool thread! *subscribe*

[Jim Ratto]

let's get some more chatter on this topic......

[nicolas]

well i thought it would have come up by now, but if memory serves me right, i believe the W100 was ground 'on the spot' by the son?? of the enterprise when he saw the original cam of a vw and found it to be too mild. i think John Lazenby told this story a few years ago, but i can't find the link.
i can only assume that more cams then one were profiled on a 'gut' feeling first and later perfectionated

but yeah, feel free to shime in anytime 

[hotrodsurplus]

Sometime back I started this link:  http://cal-look.no/lounge/index.php/topic,19486.msg275315.html#msg275315  Chris Shelton, aka HOTRODSURPLUS chimed in and brought some interesting cam history and possibilities to light.

Thanks for the reference, John. The grinds we consider 'old' are pretty new in some respects. Here's what I wrote in that link:

If there's a linkage between all this business and Volkswagens it's likely the 400/Climax lobe profile that Potvin ground for really hot Flatheads. It has 284-degrees duration with .387 lift for .013" lash. Reduce the lash to .006"  and you get .394" lift. Multiply that by a 1:1.1 rocker ratio and you get a .433" lift at 284 degrees of duration...which is the stat for an Engle 110. Coincidence?

For reference, the Climax came out between about 1949 and 1953, nearly 20 years before the Engle W-110 ever popped a valve open.

It wasn't uncommon in the least for one cam manufacturer to copy others. Storm Vulcan released a pattern-grinding machine in the late '40s that let grinders literally copy the profiles from other camshafts instead of from an oversize grinding pattern. Ed Iskenderian griped to me about how Jack Engle made his name by using one of those machines to copy the most popular grinds in the market. So it really wouldn't be too surprising if Jack copied Potvin's grind to create the W-110.