[pointcloud]

NC I know off shelf cams are ok, but I had a custom one before and it was a better match to the rest of the motor. As you pointed out, a planed motor is a much better one. I want a really trust worthy 650-700hp motor. Not so sure how far the other motor I had would have lasted, it was only ran about 6-10 miles per week, maybe 16weeks for 3 years the I sold it, and it was always something that needed adjusting...

This issue of money? That's a funny thing for me... Sometimes it's dry as a desert, and sometimes I just can't keep up... I would exspect to get what I want, it'd be $8-$12k, with me doing a lot of the nic-nak stuff... But it'll be a little. I have a lot in the works... and the motor is mid-list..


You were saying about the noise... I love an old sleeper.. Grocery gett'r.. Plus that sounds best for a street rod, no need for a huge stall..

Ok.. I am going in the direction of the picture, with the exception of that I am building it in rhino and then will make a mold to produce in fiberglass. I am building it in it's entiraty from the frame up. It's my first total auto build, I have done 12 other frame up restores but this will be a challenge...It will have some changes, but is a great example of the look.

Nc I am sure we'll be talkin'.

[AirChunk]

NC Cams,
I have played the go bigger routine, but as the AMA tightens up the rule book and our riders (motocross) are just about done with the 2 strokes
we are further developing engine of the stock bore(78mm) and
stroke (52.2mm) compression ratio of 13.5:1 . These engines rev till13,500RPM and make peak HP @12500 - 13000 RPM. Piston speed is realy high ,
12500 RPM = 4281 FPM
13000 RPM = 4452 FPM
13500 = 4624 FPM
So far we have been able to squeak out 38 HP at the rear wheel , But I hear some of our competitors are up to 40= at the rear wheel . So naturaly I want to be over 40 also .

I will give you a call soon . this week has been realy busy , so expect a call early next week !

[NC Cams]

Airchuck: The following may be contrary to what you think/know but there is a sound foundation for the position - it dates back nearly 30 years, clear back to the earliest days of high revving big and small blocks.

A number of engine builders have built largely oversquare engines. Many of them were well funded "factory" efforts that did not lack for money or development. The consensus seems to be that largely oversquare engines will make TREMENDOUS amounts of PEAK horsepower BUT, they don't always "drive" well and/or they tend to have peaky, very narrow power bands.

Now, if you are at a track where the engine will run in a very narrow rpm band (IE: Daytona, Talladega) or run F1 with much more than a 4 or 5 speed gear box, this sort of power curve may be quite satisfactory. However, if you have to run the engine over/thru a wider rpm range, a broader flatter torque curve may actually perform better.

IF, and I do mean IF, you have a SUPERB driver who can keep the engine in the power band via shifting, jumping, tire sliding, etc, a narrow peaky band may be the hot ticket. However if you are habitually stuck in traffic and are constantly having to pull off a slow corner, less PEAK power and more mid range torque might be more beneficial to the effort.

Just because the engine can pull 13K, that does not mean that it will be there all the time. Moreover, if the engine can't pull thru the 9k to 12k range smoothly and strongly, you'll NEVER see the power at 13K, no matter how much power at 13K you make.

Your B/S ratio is about 1.5. The old 430 Can-Am Chevy big blocks were only 1.23. The 427 Mk3 Rats were 1.13. The 348 cid 400 block based S/B's were 1.26 whereas the 350 cid production small blocks were/are 1.15. In each and every case, the larger bore/smaller stroke variants made more peak power over a narrower higher rpm range, as opposed to the broader/torquier curve of the smaller bore/longer stroke lower rpm combos.

Even though some of the above observations are nearly 30 years old, we're still seeing the same issues today in the NASCAR small blocks, especially since they've gone to larger bore/shorter stroke combos. Not surprisng as the laws of physics, fluid flow and thermodynamics don't change

The way you crutch the large B/S ratio engines is to find a way to get them to stay in the narrow RPM range they desire with lots of gear and money and GREAT drivers in superb chassis. If the chassis is lame and/or the driver merely ballast, all the power in the world won't make up for the position in the power curve where you'll typically find yourself.

If you're stuck with that B/S ratio - probably the case, a different cam strategy in concert with a different porting and manifolding strategy can do wonders for reshaping your torque curve into one more suitable for your rider/chassis combo.

I suspect that the high rpm/narrow power band is an offshoot of the 2 cycle mentality and/or F1 super bike technology flow down. The 2 cycles are highly rpm dependant and tend to narrowly tune due to the piping strategies. That might be fine for a 2 cycle with no valvetrain but a valvetrain offers different constraints - and tuning strategies.

The super bikes are also at high rpm and have whatever gear they want/need. When you're stuck in traffic and bogged down, sometimes you need the engine to do the work cuz the rider is too busy to think/worry about which gear to use - he's too busy trying not to get run over or to not hit the moving chicane in front of him.

I'd probably go about things a bit different if I were interloping into 4 cycle dirt racing. The first question you'd need to know is this: What is the TRUE rpm range of the engine? Then, what percent of time do I spend in the low/mid rpm ranges? The answers to these questions will point to where you SHOULD be making torque/power instead of making power at some arbitrary rpm point that you only hit 5% of the time. When/if you can get an rpm histogram of a typical lap time, the bike (not the moveable ballast riding it) will tell you where to improve the power curve.

In other words, doing things to improve the torque in the rpm band where your bike spends 60-70% of your time will do much more for improving your lap times than anything you do for the 30-40% rpm factor, or more importantly, the 1% of the time spent at peak power.

[NC Cams]

Pointcloud: Street engines are typically hugely overcammed. If you plan on driving it SANELY, cam timing should be between 210-220 at 0.050 for a cruiser. The amount of lift depends on if it is roller or flat tappet as well as how much spring you have room for. Single versus dual pattern depends on if you have open or closed headers or how good of porting you're working with.

For a HOT street package, you can move up to something between 220-230 at 0.050". A 230 x 230 at 109 small block 1.6 RAR equipped 10:1 C/R 406 and full flow exhaust system I know of gave 12:1 big blocks FITS in street racing and idled smoothly and drove like a champ. Lift is in the low mid 0.500"s and it never hurts parts.

What I've learned of late is that a lot of the "hot rod cam" kits are not optimally matched. The cams were designed by somebody who was looking for certain numbers for durn at 0.050" and/or lift and then they pair that up with whatever springs are in the catalog. WE don't do that. We figure out where the engine wants to be run, then come up with a cam and spring package best suited for the valve train combo the engine builder has selected.

The big block 10.20 drag car mentioned earlier was 406 big block, had 2 @ 850's on a tunnel ram and weighed 3000+ - the valvetrain was all steel. The cam was 264/270 x 108 and flat tappet with 1.7 rar. Lift was in the low 0.600's. It didn't hurt parts and had a decent, actually wimpy idle but above 3K, nothing but excitement. It ran 7000+ rpm day after day and also never hurt parts.

Hope this helps the efforts....

[an0n]

Hm, nice shot NC_CAMS, you really killed that conversation.
Why is it that wherever I see you mention stuff you talk about how good you are at whatever stuff you do.
Obviously someone with no programming knowledge, will not be able to complete a project like a cam measurement machine with software and all.
However it's entirely possible to build one, and with a sane budget, given a bit of programming skill,
Linear encoders with extreme resolutions are expensive, but you can do linear measurement with a rotary encoder without any major problems.

[Adobe Machine]

I need to comment here: For those of you that do not know ,N.C. Cams was the chief cook, bottle washer and and HEAD engineer of the then largest after market and OEM manufacturer of forged pistons ( most specialty piston suppliers used forged blanks from NC Cams company) He developed their racing parts program, their speciality OEM piston/ring /bearing program ect.
I was involved in Drag Boat Racing ( Blown Fuel Flat bottom, Blown Alcohol Flat, Blown Alcohol Hydro)..his expertise and knowledge made it easy for a lot of engine builders if they listened( and me too, I did listen)..Yes ,he devoted a life time to actually desigining parts that worked right, instead of experimenting with some one elses money and making promises that correct engineering said was bunk or impossible...
In fact, NC Cams was the one that sponsered Kieth Black into the Society Of American Engineers (known as SAE) NC Cams has always stopped to help a struggling engine builder with good sound advice..Not only that his engineering knowledge of bearings is top notch, and certinly have helped a lot of people on this forum (if they listned) solve bearing/back lash and other problems associated with bearing selection...my advice ..just listen and read ,he does not give improper or bad advice, and gives his time freely, as several other very knowledgable people do.

Adobe (old as dirt)

[RICHARD ZASTROW]

Amen

[an0n]

Adobe Machine, While that's really interesting, what has that to do with the actual topic of this thread?, a cam measurement machine?.

[NC Cams]

ANON: I do NOT take the science of cam measuring lightly. I can't. My livelihood depends on it as does the livelihoods of the clients I do work for as does the guys who work for me. Vague generalities can't/won't properly read a cam - only good sound engineering and proper data acquisition and processing will generate viable, meaningful profile info when you reverse engineer a cam.

My clients pay me to give them GOOD to GREAT engineering and manufacturing expertise. Hence, when someone asks "how to build a cam doctor", they are delving into an area of camshaft science/expertise that takes a MAJOR jump from simple degree wheel measurements to that of real, hardcore science. Trust me, IT IS NOT AS EASY AS SOME SEEM TO THINK!!!!

The science of reading a cam and PROPERLY evaluating the dynamic respone of same is NOT easy. When you take a manufactured part and reverse engineer it, the accuracy with which you do same determines if the engineering will be worthwhile or about as useful as simply generic as lobe lift and advertised duration.

When it comes to determining area under the lift curve, valve spring force calculations, valve toss speed and other stuff that REAL engine builders stake their reptations on, this is the sort of info that our analysis provides and it can be priceless.

We've already been give cams "blindly" and predicted that they would do what they did to the valvetrain and never saw the cams run - the dynamic traces said that one cam should break the valvetrain, which it did. We figured it would go 150 miles, it went 250 but, sadly not the 500 that the team was hoping for. Not perfect but, then again, we predicted what would happen better than a competing outf it who made the cam in the first place. The client still wonders how we could do that and the creator of the cam couldn't.

If all you want is advertised duration (essentially meaningless), duration @ 0.050" and/or lift, all you need to do is figure out the part number and consult the catalog and/or talk to the cam "helpline" and hope you get reliable info.

IF you're looking to compete against well monied teams (hobby or semi-pro or factory), the guys who look harder and deeper and understand what they're looking at will eat your lunch. You can rest assured that the pro teams get much farther past the "help line" than you or I would ever get. That's why I started NC Cams - to offer the services that the race cam companies can't/won't offer and levels of help that I couldn't get while working at the supplier mentioned in post #26.

Can a "little bit of programming" create a cam doctor? NO. Can you do a 2 degree lift plot and let Excel graph the data? SOrt of. Is 2 deg data as good as 1 degree data? That depends on what you're trying to achieve but for our use, NOPE.

Can you use a "rotary encoder" of undefined resolution and read a cam? It depends on the degree of accuracy that you're trying to achieve. HOw you get counts per rev to mean something takes programming and math/calculus skills that not a lot of people posess. Heck, a lot of people don't even know what differentiation means let alone how to do it. You or someone HAS to differntiate the data one reads in order to "read a cam". Perhaps ANON would like to give a dissertation on how to do it as he seems to think it is easy.

Our encoders break the circle into 3600 parts. Our linear encoders break a lift down to millionths of an inche. Do we need to do it that fine? Probably not. Then again, some guys measure piston clearance with yard sticks (feeler gages), some use micrometers to 0.001" and others to 0.0001". How accurate do you want/need to be?

We measure cams the same way that the major brand cam companies do as well as the OEM's as well as a lot of the prototype cam companies - and our measuring device is traceable to the industry standards for measuring cams. Some of the "racer grade" so called cam doctors do not have such certification capabilities. Which would you rather have your cam data supplied from???

If you want to know how to create a simple, inexpensive cam measuring machine, it would seem that ANON may have figured out "how to do that". Amazingly, the whole rest of the professional cam industry hasn't been able to do it and they rely on special, high $$$ machines. If it is so easy ANON, please oh please explain and/or show how!?!??! And do so in specifics, not vague generalities.

Sadly, we've been down the path of trying to make/create an inexpensive cam reader. Why? We were not bucks up when we started NC Cams. After having been down the "all you got to do is...." path and failing misearably, we yielded and spent the big bucks for the equipment that we're using. BTW, the same equipment that we use to measure pro cams is used for the hobby cams and/or even a lowly go-cart cams we do.

There are cam companies who've made cams for years and never won a NASCAR race, let alone the prestigous Daytona 500. We won the second year we did cams for it. It was Harvey Crane who said, "IF your cam company has never won the Daytona 500, you should start dealing with one who has" especially if you even hope to win it. The same effort we put into that accomplishment is put into EVERY single cam we do.

Oh, by the way, we HAVE the cam measuring equipment and it is DEVELOPED and IT WORKS and it is PRO GRADE. It is not vague "vapor ware" that has been alluded to but not described and remains unmade and undefined by the critics in prior posts.

As far as my recommendations or advice are concerned: everyone is free to take or leave it.

Is my stuff good/great? I don't know but I try very hard to offer the best at what we do. We do have enough repeat business to keep the doors open. We've been told our cams are as good as any and better than some and not as good as others from our name competitors.

Interestingly, the team we did the restrictor plate work for hasn't won a plate race since they quit using our cams. You can be the judges if there is any relationship between them leaving us and their race results since.

Last and foremost, WE CARE ABOUT OUR PRODUCT AND ITS PERFORMANCE. We got into cams because we WANTED to. It was not just a job, it is a profession and, to some extent, an obsession. I dunno and don't care if the name companies share that level of enthusiasm but we do and so do my employees. That sort of dedication/involvement is definitely not rampant in the industry.

Adobe: thanks for the accolades. I don't make it a point to even mention my "resume" until or unless a client asks - most clients don't as they typically come to us by word of mouth recommendation and/or on a need to know basis. We don't advertise nor do we "sponsor" ANYONE. We do help out on occasion by offering engineering services as part of an R&D "sponsorship" effort. But that sort of "support" is highly focused and quite selective.

[NC Cams]

HOw to build a cam doctor:

Buy a ROD 450 Heidenhain rotary encoder.

Buy an MT25 Heidehain linear encoder

Buy an appropriate Heidenhain interface card (PCI is the only variant available anymore) which means you also have to buy a Windows developers kit to interface/red the damn interface card.

Spend a bit of time at the library and/or the SAE archives locating some of the seminal articles on how to read and analyze cams - they're there, and easy to find, if you know how to look for them. You can reinvent the wheel and create the techniques all over again from scratch but why bother?

Then, you can figure out how to collect the data from the Heidenhain cards/encoders, figure out how to integrate the data and then, when the data doesn't make sense (it won't), lose countless hours of sleep trying to figure out what the hill went wrong and where.

Then when you have collected bogus data, and you will, especially if the cam is bent or bowed (they all are to some extent), you can then go nuts trying to get the software to correct the data to match a properly measured cam that you use as your "master" to check your math/programming skills. Hint: trying to find the TRUE max lift point of a bent cam is NOT EASY, espcially if it was ground with base circle runout.

Better yet, contact ANON via PM as he surely has or knows where to find the answers to these and other more difficult to address problems and challenges that will befall anyone who tries to make a simple cam measuring machine.

Simple task? NOT FRIGGING HARDLY!!! Come to think of it, we're probably not charging enough for what we do and to the amount of detail we provide. I'll have to look into that - raising prices - when I have time. Thanks, ANON, for forcing me to open my eyes and seeing this oversight.

[peter.blais]

Hi there... I'm one of those ME students you haven't been able to find haha. I've been considering building something along these lines just to help myself understand camshaft / valvetrain dynamics further and try to understand what sort of approach people are taking in designing these cams.

Our textbooks cover some of the various general camshaft profiles- constant velocity, constant acceleration, harmonic, etc etc etc, but not in great detail and not relating (as far as I can tell) to truly high speed automotive cam profiles.

Any suggested SAE searches / articles or books I should purchase to help me learn more about this stuff would be wonderful. Hell I'd be glad to come sweep the floor at your shop if I wasn't way out here in utah with a girlfriend and dogs and whatnot.

Right now i'm reading an old school book on mechanical vibrations. I wanted to measure position and differentiate for acceleration, take the mass of all the components and be able to verify if the aftermarket valve springs for my motor (VW / Audi 1.8t 20v) are in the ballpark for the camshafts / speeds I'm running.

I also saw some cool ways to analyze vibration within the valve spring itself by treating each coil as a point mass with smaller springs in between them. I have a matlab code around somewhere I had started for that, it's trickier then it would seem

-Pete

[NC Cams]

Dear Pete - you're not trying hard enough to find what you're looking for.

Do a CNC Zone search for my posts as a sort critera.. IN a prior one on camshafts, I gave a list of seminal works where one could look at to find some how to's on camshaft design. THsee should point you to more and they to even more. SOme are easy to get, some take some real digging. I"m still looking for some and I started looking back in 1976

What you're asking for is essentially the keys to my shop and moslty the HDD from my design PC. How so? If you have a camshaft grinder and do not have the engineering expertise, you'll simply be relegated to doing cam regrinds from coppied masters for market prices. NObody will sell anybody blank cams anymore due to the depressed nature of the aftermarket. Guys like us fought that tooth and nail until we literally started to make our own cam blanks. We couldn't sell engineering BUT we could sell ENGINEERED cams.

THe depressed prices of the aftermarket cams is sort of intentional. It keeps competition out - especilaly when one is systematiclaly excluded from being a purchaser of cores. This is why we started to offer the engineering as part of a total package.

Actually the engineering came first, the grinder came second. We thought we could sell cam and V/T engineernig but nobody would buy - they only bought cams from name grinders who GIVE their stuff away as promotional items. Even though the racers had "cam doctors", very few knew what the hell they were looking at. You see, enginering schools don't teach engineering , they gloss over it. Frankly if it were not for the NASCAR boys and their efforts to turn 9500 rpm all day long, we'd not have survived grinding aftermarket "hobby" cams. Thre ain't no money in grinding. This too will fade as the "crate motor" is looming even in NASCAR. "Twas nice while it lasted.

I"ve spent the majority of my lifetime looking for and researching the finer and sometimes dumbler aspects of cam design. SOme of the types you mention are viable BUT nearly 50 or more years old and hardly contemporary. THey have their purpose but not in most hi perf or race V/T's anymore.

Utah is hardly the place to go to learn how to design and grind cams. They said the same thing about Ann Arbor. MI. Even so, we won 12 of 16 restrictor plate races with our cams including 3 Daytona 500's. THe way the car companies are going, we may be out of sources who grind or even care to grind cams - few care to learn and the kids at the oem's simply don't have the WHOLE background foundation to to it like the "oldtimers" did in the 20, 60 and 70's. Believe it or not, the same theory that pertained in the 50's, still works today. WE just push the envelop farrer and harder anymore.

WIth business the way it is, we're of necessity being stingy with the hard core secrets of design and/or design background. YOu never know if the next kid who walks in the door may have a rich uncle who'll set the kid up after he learns the secrets to/of the tradefrom you - talk about self devaluation.

My life and house are invested in my business, WOuld I sell it? ALready did, to the employees. WOuld I give it away? ALready did that with some BIG strings. The knowledge stays with me until I die or I"m offered enough to part with it. Hint I almost died twice this past year and nobody has offered enough to part with it yet... Don't expect anybody to do so anytime soon.

Do the search for the references I've listed previously on CNC Zone. You should readily be able to find what you seek if you know how and where to look. THis is not being a turd, it is EXACTLY how I came to posess the knowledge I have re cam design. Same questions were asked by me, same problems finding articles, same lame education system, same queries regarding cam measurement. Half the fun is FINDING some obscure article written in 1946, ore 1955. THey wrote articles like that back then. Novogy does that anymore.

SOlved the knowledge part by using the research skills I got in college. Solved the measurement part by spending a ton of money to buy an Andrew's Produts EXcam -well over 10K at the tiem, cam doctors aren't made anymore. THe rest of the stuff came from hours upon hours of reverse engineering cams and then trying to duplicate the same via my own duplicate designs.

You've been shown "how" to do what you ask, How bad do you want to have/get it?

BTW, if you want your cam read, we offer that service. Look up NC Cams in Ann Arbor MI and give us a call. We can do a system/spring analysis for a bit more -it is sort of like a reastaurant - the more you order and the more sxpensive the dish, the more it will cost.

We do have NASCAR, NHRA and even hobby budget pricing.

[BillTodd]

NCCams,

The knowledge stays with me until I die

Then the knowledge, and it appears you have plenty, will be lost
(Unless there's a NCCam jnr who is as in love with cams as his father)

Have you considered writing a book(s) ?

[NC Cams]

Dear Bil

The thought has crossed my mind but it would be pretty much a regurgitation of the stuff that has already been written. I don't see the reason for bothering. Besides you can buy versions of software that already DO what these articles talk about. Problem is cost: Folks won't pay the money to buy a pre canned analysis program - I know the guy who wrote some damn good ones. Hell, people won't spend the $50-$250 we ask to do an analysis athat involves the use or our $15K machine.

WHen the price is right, anybody in their right mind would sell. Until or unless I get the right price, well, you alredy know the plan.

Besides, the kids today seem to be interested in answers, not the knowledge on how to solve the problems and understand the fundamentals behind the part.

The stuff Peter is looking for can be found much easier today than when I went looking.. I"ve explained how I did it. IF he or anyone else wants it as bad as I did, they can do the searches too.

I used local libraries, I even made a special trip to NYC to visit the ASME library there a number of years ago. I was lucky enough to get some stuff given to me but any/all of it is/was published by SAE, Machine Design (when they did hard core design stuff) as well as ASME.

Once you find the first article, the stuff is so cross linked it is pathetic, the rest comes a bit easier. If you know what a bibliography is and how to use it, one wouldn't need a book from me - it is already there. Hint: do an SAE author search for "Nourse".and a google for Harvey Crane - Considering whre these can/will lead you, they are BIG ASS hints. IF you can't find what you want from the above, YOU DON"T WANT IT BAD ENOUGH!!!

From where I sit, folks would rather buy/steal/copy junk that pay a fair price for the ways to make good stuff in the first place. I earn a living offering them engineered alternatives. Simple as that....

[peter.blais]

Ya, I have figured out how to dig in the SAE stuff pretty well. I have stacks and stacks of SAE papers and ancient textbooks on connecting rod and crankshaft design all over the place here... Valvetrain stuff is a recent interest of mine. I will do some digging, I may take you up on it and send in a few sets of cams as well, if I can scrounge up the two particular grinds I am after. The company has one dealer in the US who doesn't answer the phone and doesn't reply to emails.

I'm already splitting my time between designing a new connecting rod and building a miniature wire edm machine (20 micron wire), half micron encoders, etc- for school, so wanting to figure out valvetrain dynamics may have to wait.

I'll have to agree with you on the school system stuff. While I do feel they couldn't really cram much more into a 4 year degree- or we would probably explode- it does leave one sorely missing detailed information. As you mentioned, it's more of a crash course / overview then anything else, but I suppose that is what graduate school is for if you want to keep it formal. Our school is also big into robotics not automotive.

I have some renishaw linear encoders that would work perfect for one of these babies sitting in the back seat of my POS van out in the road lol- for the wire edm.

[peter.blais]

PS: Nourse- 1961

The old stuff always has the nitty gritty / basic practical info. :cheers:

Thx for the "look thataway" tidbit -Pete

[NC Cams]

Peter

If you ever find some of those "special secret, have to kill you if we find it" grinds that come from people who don't answer calls, we can generally read it and copy it onto pretty much anything. Withing geometric limits of course. Did that for an F/production Porsche for the runoffs one year - the car ran away and hid from the field with was nearly 20 deg smaller than the hot super secret "trick" grind you had to have for the particular engines. BTW, it was our very first attempt at doing a Porsche anyting.

BTW, the copycat cams we did in the 2000/2001 Nascar season made more power than the originals they were based upon.

PSS: Nourse did several, The Nourse "camcheck" program is essentially the same exact thing that all the cam doctor/Ezcam/Audi tech guys emulate even today. SOrt of reinventing the wheel.

THe problem with copying/making a cam for something that is scarce is cam core availability. We solved that with a form of tool steel that we stumbled upon. IT works for both roller and flat tappet cams. It is not "cheap" to make a cam of this but the material is decidedly cheaper than the often times UNOBTANIUM OEM materials.

Hint, If you have some bookend cams to what you want, and have an idea what you need, we can probably design up a "Hobby grade" version of a NASCAR quality true CUSTOM grind, matched to your vavletrain package and valve spring.

This is not a cookie cutter off the shelf generic grind like those offered by others, rather an application specific piece that is specifically tooled for YOU. Expensive yes, priceless? Darn close Affordable?, depends how bad you want it....

PS WRT Con rods. there are three deisgn, tubular (old offy), I beam (most OEM ala Ford, Chev, Mopar), H beam (Carrillo and hteir knock off variants). Each is particularly suited to their particular engine based upon a number of criteria.

Cost wise, the forged I beam is cheap and easily affordable. It can handle some offset loading but works best in "centered under the piston" apps. Billet variant was still sold by Lentz, C&A and Lunati. All oem rods until recently wire this variant. Being replaced by HIP/PM today.

Higher in cost and a bit more "Exotic" is the H beam. Due to the positioning of the material, it offers a bit more bending resistance when placed under a piston with pin sider or cap side offset. This same placement of material makes machining a bit more difficult and therefore expensive. Pretty much all Carrillo sells is H beam although the Lentz I beam variant supposedly originated in Fred Carrillo's shops back in the 60's. Lots of CHinese copies. Hard to go wrong with.

The Old Offy's had a tubular cross section con rod. Absolute work of art - got one in my collections. There was an investment cast knock off done in the 60's. I dunno if they are still around. None come close to the Old OFFY in execution and shear beauty. THis was done via seat of the pants type of engineering from billet, great maching, and tons of hand work. The performed admirably many years and in many variants of Offy. Heavier doses of Alky, nitro and boost eventually let this design RIP in the annals of race con rods.

The Indy Ford "Cammer" of the early 60's, which became the "Foyt". used billet I beams with some big end features gleaned from the Offy.

Con rods are simple (sic). Provide enough cross section in the right areas to sustain alternating, rhythmic and violently changing compressive and tensile loads in the beam while simultaneously keeping the big end round and properly clamping of the bearing.

[skippy]

Back to the original question of cam profile logging, I know that Sportdevices.com made several of these machines including software and everything ready to go. I'm not sure if they still make them due to poor sales as it's not exactly a high volume product. Jose Luis is very approachable and his email address is: [email protected] or [email protected] Although based here in Spain, he regularly exports to the USA

[elmerfud]

Back to Airchunks initial request, hopefully i have not missed a similiar response whilst skipping over cam profile lectures.
The program called 'Mach 3' by artsoft, which is a big hit with all these cnc home brewers can cater for your idea.
It can be configured for encoders and can output point clouds.
It also supports usb cameras for accurately pitched measurements.
In theory you could not even have an nc machine and just the encoders on a 'between centres' type set up.
I wish you well, keep me posted.

[NC Cams]

I'm a bit tired of the "all you got to do is" response when it comss to measruing cams.

IT is not the issue of putting encoder date INTO the machine that is the hard part, that's easy. It is taking the data and turning it into meaningful and CORRECT camshaft data that is the hard part.

I can list at least 5 common problems found in cams that either are not addressed or addressed poorly in some of the hobby grade cam doctors that are/were on the market. Reason: the software ignores/poorly hand'es the data.

THus, if ones softwared puts out random bad/wrong data, how do you know when it is reading right or simply putting out bogus data?

Frankly, I'd welcome a hobby grade doctor that WORKED. However, I"m also tired of having the integrety of my product being challened by a half fast "yardstick" readiing of my cams when we measure and check it with a machine that reads and corrects to 0.00001". btw, we've not had our results invalidated, even when checked by the industry standard Adcole.

Frankly and finally, if you can write software that will accurately and cheaply convert encoder data into meaningful camshaft data, we'd be happy to be your beta site. Simply put, it ain't an "all you gotta do is" project.