Re: Comp Cam

[jlandry@domain.elided (John A. Landry)]

As the little green aliens inserted a searing hot probe into the sternum of
Darrel <darrelK@domain.elided>, a blood curdling scream was heard...

>How much
>money do you save by going with the Federal-Mogul camshaft instead of Comp
>Cams?

I can't really say because to be honest, I didn't price an aftermarket cam.
The Northern Auto Parts rebuild "kit" included the Federal-Mogul stock cam by
default.  After much thought and asking for many opinions, I decided that the
stock cam was what I wanted over an aftermarket cam, so I didn't specifically
look into pricing.  I'm pretty sure Comp Cams doesn't offer a stock cam.  But
Mike Ryan bought a Comp cam for his rebuild project and from his figures, I
*think* a person would be adding maybe $100 to $150 by adding an aftermarket
cam.  This assumes the cam and new valve springs.  I'm reusing the old valve
springs because they all checked out fine and I'm not planning on increasing
the suggested redline rpm.

>Of Course, Federal Mogul has to have the timing information you need somewhere.
>You can't grind a camshaft without the specifications. I had the same problem
>trying to get spring rates from the lift kit manufacturers. Had to keep trying
>until I got a hold of the right person.

I did call Federal-Mogul and the bored technician I spoke with went and
"pulled the print" (in his words).  He read off all of the opening and closing
points and the duration and claimed that was all that was on the print.  He
told me they "copied" the factory cam, so I assume they simply placed a new
(let's hope) factory cam in one of those cam grinding machines and fired her
up.  I was reading about this on some web sight recently.  These cam grinders
have machines that allow them to pop in an existing cam and copy just copy it.
I got the feeling this is how they normally grind cams (pre-CNC technology).
They make master pattern cams and use them in the machine to copy and grind
the finished cams.  So copying an existing cam is simple.

That's why I'd like to get some sort of definitive specification on what a
factory cam was supposed to be... so I can verify Federal-Mogul did a good job
in copying it.  Otherwise they could have done a sloppy job and I wouldn't
know it.  But Federal-Mogul is a large well respected company so there's
probably nothing to worry about.  I'm just trying to eliminate any potential
problems during the rebuild by double checking everything.  Trust but verify!

Regards,

John L.
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