cAMSHAFTS Last year was an odd year for anyone involved in the shipping industry worldwide. Being that I have been dyno testing and grinding camshafts through Comp Cams for 20+ years, I have come accustomed to the standard 8-10 business days grinding my patterns. The cost of hydraulic rollers settled down around $350 range with a meager profit line. It was more fun to sell a cam, chain, tuner, heads all together and see the results of a customers weekend efforts! But the economy has changed that. Custom grinds have been averaging $400 plus. Some are even in the 5 to 6 week grind times. Since September of last year, we have not had any cores to grind at Comp, I sold some of the very last cores. The suppliers are not getting the cores to Comp and other grinders. They continually move the dates out further and further. So, in March I was excited to be able to get cores at Comp but the drawback was that I could not grind any tighter LSA than a 110. Everyone knows I have studied Dave Vizard's work. His books are a great wealth of information. He found that the best torque you can get from a cam profile was the 108 lsa. So, even in my old 2000-2010 KRC Performance days, The little 210/220 108lsa was an excellent performer (the old 210X). The only drawback was the overlap that dumped raw fuel unburnt. The 108 has never been good for fuel economy. But for high peak torque matched to a intake runner length, it was wonderful. For the past '6' years I have been selling the UTP 450 cam profile. It is an excellent ramp profile, low lift for stock valve train, single pattern for high torque that has seen 360 rw all motor with the same combo. When you start testing different profiles, you must be careful. If you want the same results each time, then you need to stay with one profile and continue to improve all other areas such as intake and exhaust to maximize the results. That is what I have done with the UTP350, 450 and 500. When you can do this, you can ensure your customers results will be darn near close to the specs I drive everyday on the dyno in Sandy Utah. With the shipping issues of cores, you can see that it 'inserts' an untested variable into an already winning cookie cutter combination. That is where I do not want to be. I have spent thousands on dyno runs and intake manifold gaskets dialing it in. So my decision this month to no longer sell camshafts pushes that burden onto other cam sellers. It is not that I want to do that, I refer any cam grinding to Chris at Performance Injection Equipment (PIE), it's that I no longer want the hassle. I have plenty of work and satisfaction making the 108mm throttle bodies and porting the different intake manifolds. But to sell a cam for $500+ and tell the customer sorry, 3 to 4 weeks to grind and it's not really the specs I have tested, is no longer an option for us. So, that prompted me to remove the camshafts and chains from the online store. I have simply been forwarding cam emails from my customers to Chris at PIE. I am not going to hide the truth either, Comp directly raised the prices on everyone and we did not find out until balancing the books a month later, that we paid you guys to order camshafts. That right, my cams were costing us much more from Comp. If I were able to sell a camshaft in my tested profile, not the untested '110 lsa', then the price would now need to be $529 shipped. So after 22 years, I closed my account after discussions with my Comp representative. No need to get into the details, but just know, I am not happy with how it was handled- coming from this guy who everyone knows has been a die hard Comp Cams supporter for decades. I will be posting up a cam grind detail page for those who want to approach cam grinders to copy my tested specifications. It will be in the online store but no pricing. Use the information for what it is and take the specs to your cam grinder of choice. As for this months updates, I am getting the twin 52mm 3d printed ready to sell, plus the stage 2 shorter wedge for more horsepower in the kegger intake manifolds. Check out the latest video on YouTube concerning tips on reducing spark knock also. Take care and have a great month everyone!
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