Spec'ing A-Series cams - David Vizard
Posted: Sat Feb 11, 2012 12:30 am
Interesting article on cams from DV:
"In the early 80's I did a cam makeover project for Piper cams in the UK. The results were dramatic both in terms of improved performance and sales. To quote Pipers boss 'the results were beyond our wildest dreams!' About 3 years on from the Piper deal I wrote an article in Cars & Car Conversions (a magazine I used to write for regularly until some conflicts with editors and staff who unthinkingly put me in a position of making things even harder to generate new and exciting material) that stated, in big bold wording, that I thought it a poor deal that neither the factory (British Leyland) nor England and Europe's leading cam grinders actually knew what they were doing when it came to cams for the 'A' series engine (which at that time was the most popular engine to hop up by a country mile). Wow – think about that – here is a mere motoring journalist (I am actually an engineer not a journalist but whatever) is saying – in a very public forum and using my own name, not hiding behind the anonymity of some pseudo name, and saying the factory, and virtually all others, do not know what they are doing to a sufficient degree to be anywhere near optimum for the duration figures involved. I don't suppose for one second that you will have a hard time believing that this stirred up a hornet nest."
A new way of spec'ing Cams:
http://motortecmagazine.net/article.asp?AID=4&AP=1
"In the early 80's I did a cam makeover project for Piper cams in the UK. The results were dramatic both in terms of improved performance and sales. To quote Pipers boss 'the results were beyond our wildest dreams!' About 3 years on from the Piper deal I wrote an article in Cars & Car Conversions (a magazine I used to write for regularly until some conflicts with editors and staff who unthinkingly put me in a position of making things even harder to generate new and exciting material) that stated, in big bold wording, that I thought it a poor deal that neither the factory (British Leyland) nor England and Europe's leading cam grinders actually knew what they were doing when it came to cams for the 'A' series engine (which at that time was the most popular engine to hop up by a country mile). Wow – think about that – here is a mere motoring journalist (I am actually an engineer not a journalist but whatever) is saying – in a very public forum and using my own name, not hiding behind the anonymity of some pseudo name, and saying the factory, and virtually all others, do not know what they are doing to a sufficient degree to be anywhere near optimum for the duration figures involved. I don't suppose for one second that you will have a hard time believing that this stirred up a hornet nest."
A new way of spec'ing Cams:
http://motortecmagazine.net/article.asp?AID=4&AP=1