Anyone know who grinds Trick Flow’s hyd roller camshafts or if they’re quality (design and materials)? They seem rather inexpensive which is NOT a selling point for me and likely cast. Unless it’s for a Ford no one seems to say much on them. I like a few of the specs I see on some them so if Mr Jones doesn’t come around for me soon on my custom grind from him I’m searching for a contingency. We’re rolling up on 2 months after paying and still no cam due to supply shortages. Not his fault but I’m not waiting all summer for a stinking camshaft.

 

I would guess cast core like a austempered ductile iron. I think most shelf hyd rollers are. Comp -8 cams are and seem to work well as long as spring pressures arent ridiculous

i would run tfs cams, specs arent as aggressive tho compared to some of the comp or lunati grinds but it will make decent power. Kinda like older comp magnum lobes like on the old cc306 cam or so. Can run a small diameter double spring or a beehive to keep pressures down and still contro valves. That all depends on your valve size and weights and desired rpm

 

I believe these are Crane cam lobe designs.
Could even be produced by Crane for TFS.
Remember Crane Cams are rated @.004" lifter rise,
different than typical Comp Cams .006" lifter rise.
The relative difference in seat duration is about 8 degrees. The designes are actually more alike than different when measured equally, either way.
Remember both companies are dealing with the same
physics-mechanics and limitations of a SBC valvetrain
and intended application.
Which ever specific TFS camshaft you are interesred in I bet you will find the cam lobes listed in the Crane cam lobe library list document .

 

That explains why the advertised duration is so high vs the .050” F-Bird, thanks. I thought they might be lazy and one of the reasons I’m asking about them. I’m not only considering TFS but I liked the specs on the 230/234 cam. The duration is low in the range I’m considering but it’s only a couple degrees shy of Mr Jones’ cam. Per his recommendation I’m running PAC 1218X springs on AFR 2.05” int valve with the 8mm stems mostly due to my slightly weak Howards street lifters.
As far as what I’m looking for :230-240-ish duration, 4-8* duration split, maximum .360 lobe lift or .540” valve lift since I’m using 1.6:1 rockers (.576” lift). There’s a couple Howards cams, the TFS and a Crower that fit the bill so far. Others do too if I buy at least 8x1.5:1 rockers. As far as lobe aggressiveness I’m a little in the dark on many manufacturers. I know all COMP’s newer grinds are very aggressive and there are a lot of folks who don’t care for them, even describe them as opening and closing the valves with a hammer. Because of this I haven’t really looked into their offerings. Pretty basic engine build, AFR 195’s, 383 cid, 9.8:1 compression, Vic JR intake manifold with Holley Sniper EFI, DD headers with 3.5” single exhaust and 4.10:1 rear gears (too short really). Got other suggestions? Gopher.

 

A Dual Plane Hi rise intake is a better choice for this.

 

Lunati /UDHAROLD (Ultradyne) "Street Master" series
Retrofit hyd rollers
501A4 #20120314

501A5 #20120315

501A6 #20120316

All are .530" lift (1.5rr) or .565" lift (1.6rr)

Also can get these from Bullet Cams.

 

My custom grind cam for you.
Bullet/Ultradyne (UDHarold)
Intake lobe master HR12
Exhaust lobe master HR15
110° LSA 104in/116ex C/L's so... 6° advanced.
288-292 234°-238° @.050" .3533"/.3533" lobe lift
.530"/.530" (1.5rr) or .565"/.565" (1.6rr) valve lift

Call Bullet Racing Cams to order this custom grind hyd roller.

Again I recomend a Dual Plane Hi-Rise intake manifold.

 

Vic jr i think would work best with the holley sniper
efi. I dont think dual planes do that well with tbi injection units

 

If it works with a carb it will work with TBI
Probabily better. Its up to you to dial in the TBI efi
fuel curve.
A lot more midrange torque where it matters for a street motor with a dual plane.
The only reason the TBI efi might not work on a proven good dual plane is if the cfm was lame on the TBI.

 

Not sure about your TBI efi and where specificly the MAP sensor gets its signal but apparantky on some TBI the MAP sensor is on the side so it will only read from one side of a divided plenum of a dual plane
(that does have a fully divided plenum) The fix might be to run a open spacer under the TBI to the MAP sensor reads a full common signal of all 8 cylinders.
Apparently running a carb spacer impeoves BOTH a DUAL PLANE and a SINGLE PLANE with most TBI anyway. (Similar as if with a carb)..
So it appears the big issue is the location of the MAP sensor on your TBI efi...

There is probably not any single 4 bbl intake that just works BETTER if with a carb spacer, single or dual plane type.... so,...

And if the MAP sensor is NOT located on the side or your TBI......should be no issue with a dual plane intake..

A carb spacer that also mounts the MAP sensor so it reads correctly from BOTH Plenums of a Dual Plane manifold with full height plenum divider is a option..
IMHO making the Dual Plane work is desirable.

What is the rated CFM of your TBI?
Where is the MAP sensor located?

Remember TBI efi is really just glorified carburation on a wet flow intake manifold so all the things that make a carbed V8 work well will also apply to TBI..
EG: controlled heat Plenum heat to improve idle and part throttle cruise driving thru better fuel vapourization in the intake manifold plenum and runners.. save gas, less pollution, engine just generally "Drives Better"
Can be controlled exhaust heat or hot water plenum heat.
Fuel in liquid form does not burn, so, improving vapourization on any wet flow type intake manifold
(carbed or EFI) with controlled plenum heat is highly desirable.

 

Ill look at those cams you specified F-Bird. I’m giving mr Jones a little bit longer as I still have one more project to complete on the car before I have nothing left BUT the cam to do. Ive tried both the RPM AG and the Vic JR on the car with very little SOTP difference anywhere in the power band. The AG had a little more vacuum while cruising but with the now-gone 10 bolt’s 3.42 gears I still had to cruise in 5th gear (T56). The Vic JR had less vacuum at WOT by about 6kPa. I’m not certain where the MAP reads from but the AG has the wall cut down slightly and I’ve been using a 1/4” phenolic spacer for heat soak with both the old carb and the EFI. It’s an 850cfm unit too. Haven’t had any driveability issues with the EFI since fixing the RFI and ditching the progressive linkage, power just nosed over too soon with the old 225* single pattern Howards cam.

EDIT: It’s too bad all the Lunati street master cams are retrofit roller cams. I should have mentioned I’m running an 880 block, OE roller. If it gets to that point I’ll converse with Bullet cams too... and make sure they have the appropriate cam blank on hand so I’m not stuck waiting again.

 

Give Bullet a call before you pull the handle on the catalog Lunati cams. As I think this custom grind UDHarold design cam will have a bit of a advantage in your car.. See what Bullet can do for you.
Just tell them the cam lobe master #'s, LSA and advance I referenced for you. Bullet will be glad to make you this camshaft.
Its what they do. Its up to you to get the right cam core you want and if small base circle is required for stroker rod clearance on yours.. Just ask...
Bullet will advise on valvesprings for this.

 

If you happen to have an existing OEM type hyd roller cam core on hand then Mike at Jones Cams may be able to regrind it to his specs, for you, He can advise on this. EG: your current Howards cam or other.
Mike may need to eyeball it to determine if he can re-grind his new profile on that cam.. Give him a call.

 

Keep in mind reguardless of whois camshaft you swap to that as valve duration and overlap increase so does the minimum running RPM at cruise in OD so... tends to INCREASE.. The engine may not be as happy now when @ cruise speed at that low rpm in OD.
Bigger cams want (more) RPM than smaller, milder cams do.

This (cruising at low rpm in OD) is right where employing controlled manifold PLENUM HEAT can make all the difference in the world.
Better fuel VAPOURIZATION is BETTER.

instead of "hidding wires" in the air gap under the plenum , hide a plenum heater there.
Plenum heat works wonders on any all wet flow intake manifolds. carb or TBI efi.

 

It wasn’t that I HAD to cruise 5th gear but watching the vacuum and lbs/hr gauge readouts on the sniper handheld while driving along @70-75 the engine was more efficient and even using less fuel in 5th vs 6th despite turning more rpm. Final drive gearing is now 4.10:1, that was with the 3.42 geared10 bolt. Plenum heat has never been an issue on this car once it’s driven a little while. 15-20 minutes those runners are 180*F but a heater would help on morning start ups some. The hold up with mr Jones is that, in his words, “they have ductile iron cam cores but do not like to use them on more aggressive grinds” and my current Howards is a cast core camshaft. The problem is that I need a unicorn, a step-nosed cam with a fuel pump lobe billet core that they don’t have and due to an “industry wide shortage.” I’m using a mechanical pump to fill a surge tank and the high pressure electric pump for the EFI resides in that surge tank. The shortage isn’t his fault but not letting me know this was a problem before forking over the money is and leaving me in the dark about it is. Not mad, but not glad.

 

That is an odd fuel system. Why not use the factory tank with an intank pump like a walbro 255 like stock injected cars did?

You’ll need to decide what you want, abit more lower end power for cruise or higher rpm power. 6 kpa difference at wot with the vic jr? Thats huge. A mid 230’s cam and afr 195’s on a healthy 383 is a 6500+ rpm shift point all day on the proper intake. Everything i like to play with has been relatively shorter runner designs, miniram stealth ram and single plane efi. They pull hard up top and being a 383, you should already have good torque

 

Don’t have to worry about the lack of a fuel sump in the stock tank with a surge tank. Also don’t have to drop the tank and replace the sender by going this route either. The only shortcoming I see in the way I did the fuel system is I MIGHT need a bigger fuel supply line for the power on acceleration because the mech pump is pulling from the tank at the front of the car and we all know they don’t work well that way. But I could get around that by running an in-line pump at the back near the tank. That would fix my need for the unicorn cam blank too.
I know what I want and not sure how that came across any other way. I want to move the power band up considerably. I’d leave the cam I have now if I needed more bottom end but it isn’t cutting it forcing me to shift by 5500rpm. I want to be shifting 6000-6300. The kPa diff I noticed was in my datalogs. The RPM AG peaked 95-97kPa where as the Vic JR peaked 100-101kPa. Everything else being the same. I only swapped over to the AG because I had it from when the car was carbed and wanted to see how or if it would improve or detract from the performance. I felt very little noticeable difference in performance between the two, maybe a touch more midrange torque with the AG. That was with a completely stock small port Vic JR, since then I’ve port matched the Jr about 2” back and fixed the core shift issues it had to better line up on the AFR ports. Also cleaned up the plenum area some, mostly just removing casting flaws and cleaning up, not removing, the humps just below the carb flange.

 

You could move the current cam to true straight up phasing and test, while waiting.
Especially if the cam is advanced further than cam card, You'd need to degree it.

 

With the 195’s and a mid lower 230’s deg cam at .050 you’ll def shift at 6500. But id run the single plane for that, i bet it out runs the air gap with those 4.10’s

 

Going by seat of the pants feel can be decieving.
The single plane seems to have so much more top end because the lower end part of the power curve is weaker.
You need a method of measuring acceleration tests.

 

Why not go with a semi-custom Straub roller like this one? It seems to have the exact power curve you’re looking for based on the dyno results. As a note, it only has one more degree of duration at 0.200” than the Howard’s 180525 cam. Your thread from a few years ago pointed me in the direction of that cam for my 383.

https://www.claysmithcams.com/hr-929...k-torque-3600/

 

Well shoot I wish I’d known about that cam! It’s exactly what I couldn’t find though the exhaust lift is a little weird. Today marks 2 months I’ve been waiting for Mr Jones...

 

Straub posted it in your build thread on hotrodders.com. That’s what reminded me of it.

 

Crazy that you know that thread. I haven’t been able to find it again. Must’ve been some good info in there to remember it from 3-4 years ago since at the time I was still gathering parts together before the short block was ever machined and assembled.


EDIT: found the thread. I never realized the thread came back to life a few months later. Wish I would’ve because there IS good info in there

 

Glad to help bring it back around. It was definitely one of the few I referenced when choosing a cam for my 383.

 

most ppl over lift the exhaust side...high pressure exhaust finds its way out, and typically doesnt need near the lift the intake side does

 

Right on. Nearly every modern cam out there not only opens the exhaust longer but also higher than the intake. That was my thought too, high pressure exhaust. I also noticed when doing a valve drop test (if that really means anything at all) that the exhaust had about .040” less travel available before contacting the piston crown at TDC that the intake. Didn’t install a gasket but put some .030” valve spring shims between the head and block deck to sort of simulate a .039” head gasket, then finger tightened a few bolts to see. Only helpful with knowledge of valve events and lobe profile, I know but I was curious and finished with what I had been working on. Found .426” on intake and .382” on exh. Pretty useless information.

 

Valve drop is very handy if you plot the cam lobe lift curve vs piston position. You can calc piston to valve clearance that way to know exactly how big a lobe you can fit and where the valve opening can take place. We did this on my bbc setup and it worked out spot on. From that info i could also spec the valve relief pocket depth In the custom pistons...

in reality often times a race motor will have more exhaust duration but less lift than intake. Intake has to work with atmospheric pressure and piston downward motion to pull charge in. Exhaust simply needs to open and can have many times the pressure at valve opening to blow down and that evacuates the cylinder and creates pull on the intake port to help start filling the next charge if timed right. You’ll see intake side having more rocker ratio and sometimes more lobe lift on the cam to really step up total lift. A lot of cam lobes of the same family are used for intake and exhaust specs so usually more duration just comes on a bigger lobe lift, so shelf cams end up more of everything on exhaust side. Some like comps XFI hyd roller lobes have a intake lobe and exhaust lobe spec and more lift is usually on the intake lobe

for what you are doing i dont think it will make a big difference.
my 383 11:1 with afr 195’s used a custom comp grind. 286/306 adv 230/245 at .050 on a 109 Lsa in on a 108 icl. .603/.613” Rowdy and fast. 6250 peak hp rpm and shifted 6800. Power flat from 6250 to 6600. Holley stealth ram efi intake

 

in reality often times a race motor will have more exhaust duration but less lift than intake. Intake has to work with atmospheric pressure and piston downward motion to pull charge in. Exhaust simply needs to open and can have many times the pressure at valve opening to blow down and that evacuates the cylinder and creates pull on the intake port to help start filling the next charge if timed right. You’ll see intake side having more rocker ratio and sometimes more lobe lift on the cam to really step up total lift. A lot of cam lobes of the same family are used for intake and exhaust specs so usually more duration just comes on a bigger lobe lift, so shelf cams end up more of everything on exhaust side. Some like comps XFI hyd roller lobes have a intake lobe and exhaust lobe spec and more lift is usually on the intake lobe

for what you are doing i dont think it will make a big difference.
my 383 11:1 with afr 195’s used a custom comp grind. 286/306 adv 230/245 at .050 on a 109 Lsa in on a 108 icl. .603/.613” Rowdy and fast. 6250 peak hp rpm and shifted 6800. Power flat from 6250 to 6600. Holley stealth ram efi intake[/QUOTE]


Ive heard that before and it makes complete sense about manufacturers using a lobe for either intake or exhaust. Even the cam jones spec’d for me was just 2 lobes off a lobe list chosen for duration, not lift. Makes so much more sense now why so many cams have the specs they do. Your cam has a crazy wide duration split for AFR heads though. Using nitrous or some other power adder to need a 15* split?

 

It did run some nitrous but wasnt spec’d entirely for that. Theres a few trains of thought for cams, some cam based on intake/exhaust flow ratio, meaning good exhaust flow compared to intake flow, you end up using a cam with only a few degs split. Others put valve events where they Think they need to be For the application and the specs end up being what they need to be without really paying too much attention to flow ratios. For me i think my cam guy knew i wanted a broad power band up top, being pump gas at 11:1, i needed to bleed off some pressure at low rpm which higher overlap helped, and ofcourse 150 shot nitrous in mind with a full exhaust street car.

ive seen afr heads work with many kinds of cams lol so im not sure what exactly is ideal...in the end the shape of the power band is manipulated with exhaust, intake manifold and cam specs so theres alot to consider.

same with ls heads. They generally are pretty good on both ports, but recently ive seen alot of cams moving to wider duration splits. And making more power everywhere than old single pattern or 4 deg split patterns of the past

 

Called Bullet today and have the cam F-Bird speced coming my way in yet another month of waiting. 234/238, .353 lobe lift, 6* advanced with a 110 LSA. Tried getting ahold of clay smith cams too but they never got back to me so I guess they didn’t want my money. I’ll probably run 1.5:1 rockers on the exhaust and hopefully that much cam advance won’t cause any PTV clearance issues. Bullet dang near didn’t have my core either. What a terrible time to decide to do a cam swap. Thanks fellas

One thing I do not know how to read exactly is the series of duration numbers describing a cams lobe profile. I know what the numbers mean but I don’t know what constitutes an aggressive lobe by the numbers alone.
The intake lobe is .006”- 288*, .050”-234*, and .200”-155*.
The exhaust lobe is: .006”-292, .050”-238*, and .200”-158*

 

Bout similar to a comp xtreme energy

good lobes they work well