Camshaft Recommendations
 

Who is the best person or company for custom or semi/custom cams?

This should be a good as an oil thread......:D....you really need to take in all of the components of the build to spec a cam, in a lot of cases the proven Mercury grinds will work well.

[QUOTE=F-2 Speedy;4911696]This should be a good as an oil thread......:D....you really need to take in all of the components of the build to spec a cam, in a lot of cases the proven Mercury grinds will work well.[/QUOT]
Exactly, great way to start off. Not actually looking for advice on cam specs. I know pretty much what I want, been through this before. A lot has changed in the business. I was going to pull up one of my old threads but started fresh this time. If you want to give your 2 cents I will post my specs and what I am looking for.

Bullet cams is talked about here, personally Ive not used them, Lunati , TCM in Cali has some off the shelf cams but I dont think they grind them. I had cam motion do a custom grind for some 540's but that was 9 years a go

i have found bullet by far to be the best to work with they have made a few custom ones for us and they rock, even a reverse rotation big chief supercharged cam

bullet cams for me to,,,they got me stepped nose gen 6 double swap high lift cam cores for a custom grind.

Comp Cams and Billy Golds is my go to .

Comp Cams. They spintron all of their lobes for stability.
Also, never heard a bad word about a Bullet camshaft. I use to run Ultradyne cams before they were bought by Bullet. Now I buy Comp.

I've had great experiences with Howard cams. A bit more expensive than a lot of other off the shelf ones but haven't had a bad product

Chris Straub in East Tennessee is highly regarded by a lot of builders. I'll be getting my next one from him to try out.

See quote

See quote

Lunati has removed most of its BBC cams off the website. Not sure whats up with that.
 

I had Chris to design a custom cam to my old engine, and highly recomend his custom cams! Hi knows how to get the most out of your not so good cylinder heads. My engine made 528 dyno prooven hp with ported peanut port heads.

quited to wrong post, sorry.

I had Chris to design a custom cam to my old engine, and highly recomend his custom cams! Hi knows how to get the most out of your not so good cylinder heads. My engine made 528 dyno prooven hp with ported peanut port heads.

I have AFR clone heads with AFR valves. I reused the cam on my last refresh that was setup for GM large ovals and lower compression. Shooting for 600+ HP

Bullet/Comp/Teague, etc, etc
Straub was banned from this forum. For legit reasons.
Caveat Emptor.

what were the cam specs on this magical engine,,I can compare it to my 524 and 527hp cast iron oval port headed 454's.

230/236 @050, 112lsa. 4.5" bore, 4" stroke. Weiand 8123 dual plane intake, rochester q-jet, 9.5 to 1 compression. Stainless marine exhaust.

comp Cams, no matter how you feel about their product, really messed up with their website a few years ago.

It was much better before. Lunati went the same way being under the Comp brand system. If you're lucky, you can find the download link for their catalog PDF.

You can use the Waybackmachine to search the old Comp website to get an idea of what I mean.

​​​​Cams with longer exh duration typically only benefit from a shallower peak HP curve taper. Not much benefit to most boat applications where you have a specific RPM range to operate for WOT.

I like to cam so my WOT RPM is just on the other side of the HP curve. I also don't mind losing a few ponies up top, to get a good cruising base performance and valve events.

There's also a trend to pull back exh lift and duration. No more exh lift than 1/3 exh valve diameter.

Lots of good cam guys. Just make sure you go with one that has proven lobes that will love in perf marine.

Tart... Is the "no further Lift than 1/3rd of the valve diameter" the general rule for Marine hi-perf pleasure boat engines only❓🤔
Or are Marine Racing engines for boats exempt from that general rule❓

I mean, I know tons of guys running more lift than 1/3rd valve diameter size ----- cars too!

I generally like to run somewhere around .600" to .630" Lift at valve on my cams. I generally don't want or like getting too aggressive with valve Lift. Especially if I am looking for longevity, durability, endurance, etc...

...and I agree with you that I am willing to sacrifice a little HP for an engine that's going to give me good long lasting operation. Yes, I like good throttle response performance too, but not at the expense of reliability and dependability.
I like going fast, but there is always somebody faster and I'm not trying to set the world on fire 🔥 😉