Performance Camshaft Design help

Hey PM, it’s been years since I was active. I’m wondering if any of you have cam lobe design software?
I have been working with a design company however they have zero practical knowledge of performance camshaft designing so prototype Machining time is eating up my development budget fast!

Any PM’ers out there that would interested in helping me design my new performance camshaft Profile that has experience in this subject? I will pay you for your experience!

ProTurm


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What type of camshafts - motorcycle, in-block, OHC, for rollers, for hydraulic lifters, for solid, for max fuel economy, for max torque, for high RPM, etc.

What are you trying to make that's different than the hundreds of cams already out there?

Hydraulic Roller for the new HD platform.
Having extensive experience with 4 valve head demands, the industry is simply trying to take 2 valve cam grinds and adjusting the lift to fit these engines. It’s the absolute wrong way to go with this platform.


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So it's this engine?: https://www.cycleworld.com/harley-davidson-motorcycles-new-milwaukee-eight-big-twin-engine#page-6

Going for more power at higher RPM? Do you have better valve springs that you'll likely need? And if you're accelerating the valves faster than stock, can the lifters take it?

Interesting head design, with the central and offset plugs.

Andrews already does exactly this. You're going to compete with him ? He's got forty years experience at this and he's good. And he's got several 1.5 mil Landis cnc cam grinders handy for testing. There's other people doing cams that have been designing for four-valves for the past fifty years, too. And they are good.

You're going to walk in and kick their ass with a recommendation off practicalmachinist ?

Save your time, go do something else.

Kevion Camerin wrote that article ? Boy has he come down in the world. I guess a guy will do anything for cash

proturn said:

Hydraulic Roller for the new HD platform.
Having extensive experience with 4 valve head demands, the industry is simply trying to take 2 valve cam grinds and adjusting the lift to fit these engines. It’s the absolute wrong way to go with this platform.


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Maybe knock around on shops that do anything else than HD specific cams.

proturn said:

Hydraulic Roller for the new HD platform.
Having extensive experience with 4 valve head demands, the industry is simply trying to take 2 valve cam grinds and adjusting the lift to fit these engines. It’s the absolute wrong way to go with this platform.


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is there a large capacity cylinder Jap mcycle engine with 4 valves that work in the same rev range? reverse engineer their cam profile. even if it's not a roller cam you can measure angle/lift, and then modify for use with a roller.

Or look at a Rotax 604 engine, large capacity air cooled single, lots of (reliable) power, and I think roller rockers, with a wide range of cam profiles availible.

SeaMoss said:

Andrews already does exactly this. You're going to compete with him ? He's got forty years experience at this and he's good. And he's got several 1.5 mil Landis cnc cam grinders handy for testing. There's other people doing cams that have been designing for four-valves for the past fifty years, too. And they are good.

You're going to walk in and kick their ass with a recommendation off practicalmachinist ?

Save your time, go do something else.

Kevion Camerin wrote that article ? Boy has he come down in the world. I guess a guy will do anything for cash

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Andrews may do this, but not always. I have the exact same problem as the OP. I contacted Andrews directly and they would not do this for me. I asked around the whole world looking for help. Eventually, I contacted Webb Cams and they said they would grind my cams, but they did not have a master for the profile I wanted. I had done my homework and plotted the profile and expressed it in an XL spreadsheet (radial displacement and lift). Webb Cams has manual cam grinders, not CNC. Webb Cams told me their masters were made at Andrews. I went back to Andrews and asked them for cam masters so Webb Cams could grind my cams. My contact there was Gary Wallace in technical support. He said that they would look at the job. I filled out and validated their design form and sent that to Gary.... no response.... I called Gary again, he apologized, and said he needed the cams and cylinder head. I sent them......no response. I called again. He apologizes and said they have a new CMM and no one was trained to use it yet. That was two years ago. They still have my head. I still do not have a design or a cost estimate. All of Andrew's cam profiles are data files as they only have CNC machines. I still have not found anyone to do the job. I have contacted many firms that said they could do it, but all I have received is just words, so if the OP, or anyone else finds a solution, please let me know.

steve-l said:

... so if the OP, or anyone else finds a solution, please let me know.

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pm'ed you ... but you know, if you have an nc machine you can mill your own, then stone them.

Steve-I

I now am heavily immersed and invested in HD performance and do all head, Bottom end and cylinder work in house.
There is very little Integrity in this business as everyone is ripping someone’s idea or product off on a daily basis.
I have a small company in mind to do the actual grinding of the cams from the blanks that I manufacture. That company also needs me to make master followers to fit their ww2 era Machine.
I’m not looking to beat anyone but myself through this process. Each day I push my own records in order to satisfy my racing thoughts.
Anyone have solid cam motion?


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proturn said:

That company also needs me to make master followers to fit their ww2 era Machine.

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The three bigs of that era are Storm-Vulcan, Van Norman and Landis. The Landis is very much a production machine so chances are they have a Storm-Vulcan (that's the most common) or maybe a Van Norman (but the V-N is slower). More recently, Berco made a pretty nice one but the principle is the same.

Those machines have a tilting table, quite difficult to figure out the geometry for the master but easy to do it by making a model cam. The machine can grind its own master from a sample cam. That's the way it was commonly done before nc. Make a sample on a mill using an indexing head, then grind the master from that, then grind the cams from that. Room for error

There is now a Taiwanian cnc cam grinder that doesn't look too bad, for a light machine. The Landis is a brute, with a 20" diamond wheel that can remove pounds of steel per minute at very high accuracies. But twenty years ago they were a million anda half and if you didn't put in the three-feet-deep foundation the warranty was no good. God knows what they cost now, so time on them is not free.

Andrews has several, and he was instrumental in making XR's go fast, so there's your competition.

The trouble with Sportster cams is, with a roller follower of small diameter and a re-entrant cam, you can't grind them with a big wheel. Grinding a cam with a 4" diameter wheel sucks. It's best to avoid that if possible. Most likely this engine uses hydraulics and doesn't have that problem but something to keep in mind if you do HD's.

Quite a few people have made their own cam grinders - one of the easier ways is to modify a Van Norman piston grinder, if you can find one. These days, tho, that Taiwanian thing looks pretty nice. I'll see if I have a photo somewhere.

http://www.motionsoftware.com/Dynomation5.htm
I have a older pro version of this
You can design and test cam profiles

SeaMoss said:

The Landis is a brute, with a 20" diamond wheel that can remove pounds of steel per minute at very high accuracies. But twenty years ago they were a million anda half and if you didn't put in the three-feet-deep foundation the warranty was no good. God knows what they cost now, so time on them is not free.

Andrews has several, and he was instrumental in making XR's go fast, so there's your competition.

The trouble with Sportster cams is, with a roller follower of small diameter and a re-entrant cam, you can't grind them with a big wheel. Grinding a cam with a 4" diameter wheel sucks. It's best to avoid that if possible. Most likely this engine uses hydraulics and doesn't have that problem but something to keep in mind if you do HD's.

Quite a few people have made their own cam grinders - one of the easier ways is to modify a Van Norman piston grinder, if you can find one. These days, tho, that Taiwanian thing looks pretty nice. I'll see if I have a photo somewhere.

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More likely a CBN than diamond, CBN's usually recommended for steels over ~55HRC or thereabouts.

Proturn, if you decide to try making your own cam grinder, I have some Norton CBN wheels that were made for the big auto companies. ~20" OD x 3/4" face, if that sounds of interest let me know.

Sounds like you need to find a guy with a Y axis lathe for prototyping
*cough*

Milland said:

More likely a CBN than diamond, CBN's usually recommended for steels over ~55HRC or thereabouts.

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Automotive cams aren't generally that hard. And usually not steel, either Although I think the NASCAR ones are, and some aircraft. But they still aren't that hard. Sportsters are an oddball. Even the "hardfaced" ones aren't really hard, it's stellite in a nickel matrix. Very wear-resistant but not Rc hard.

That whole deal of the interaction between the cam and the follower is another subject that is rarely touched upon when people start blabla about cams, but that's where that experience thing comes into play. It's important.

SeaMoss said:

Cams aren't that hard. And usually not steel, either Although I think the NASCAR ones are, and some aircraft. But they still aren't that hard.

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Chilled cast iron? Still the same issue with carbon uptake damaging the diamond grains. This wheel vendor specifically doesn't recommend diamond for steels or other carbon-sucking materials:

https://www.georgiagrindingwheel.com/grindingwheels_basics.htm [bottom of the page]

SeaMoss said:

Automotive cams aren't generally that hard. And usually not steel, either Although I think the NASCAR ones are, and some aircraft. But they still aren't that hard. Sportsters are an oddball. Even the "hardfaced" ones aren't really hard, it's stellite in a nickel matrix. Very wear-resistant but not Rc hard.

That whole deal of the interaction between the cam and the follower is another subject that is rarely touched upon when people start blabla about cams, but that's where that experience thing comes into play. It's important.

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From Wiki [:]Bad title - Wikipedia

"Camshafts can be made out of several types of material. These include:

Chilled iron castings: Commonly used in high volume production, chilled iron camshafts have good wear resistance since the chilling process hardens them. Other elements are added to the iron before casting to make the material more suitable for its application.

Billet Steel: When a high quality camshaft or low volume production is required, engine builders and camshaft manufacturers choose steel billet. This is a much more time consuming process, and is generally more expensive than other methods. However, the finished product is far superior. CNC lathes, CNC milling machines, and CNC camshaft grinders will be used during production. Different types of steel bar can be used, one example being EN40b. When manufacturing a camshaft from EN40b, the camshaft will also be heat treated via gas nitriding, which changes the micro-structure of the material. It gives a surface hardness of 55-60 HRC. These types of camshafts can be used in high-performance engines."

Oh lord, still a chopstick engine... Over head cams are today, or more like yesterday but hey what can you do when stuck in the past nostalgia.

Anyway on subject, when prototyping cams one can make separate lobes on a mill and press fit them on the shaft. Fast and cheap prototyping, hell you can even bolt the lobes on and change lobe separation at the dyno.
Just a thought.

Marko

Milland said:

Chilled cast iron? Still the same issue with carbon uptake damaging the diamond grains.

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You could be correct and I am sure they have different wheels for different applications, but the guy I know does mostly hardfaced and pretty sure they were diamond wheels. I am glad I was sitting down when I heard the price ... Material about 40-ish usually, or soft. The hardfacing is put on with a torch, by hand. There is very little steel showing, just a tiny band on either side of the hardface. I know in general you are right but in this case ... I'd normally remember it as borazon if it was borazon. Now I'm curious.

No, he doesn't rough them on the grinder. Built a pretty spiffy system using an old tracer mill and a wormdrive gear reducer.

On the other hand, if he's changed to doing more straight steel, it's possible that he's now also using cbn wheels and changing them. S'pose I could ask ... nah, conjecture is more fun

MJPfin said:

Oh lord, still a chopstick engine... Over head cams are today, or more like yesterday but hey what can you do when stuck in the past nostalgia.

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Yeah, well, one of the reasons the Virago never cut the mustard was all that spinning weight up high screwed up the handling. These simplistic sneers don't always fit the facts. There's a lot to be said for pushrods.

Talk to Comp cams. The Xtreme energy cam profile is designed for pushrod engines and works well with heads that have high flow at low lift. They work well with high static compression, but result in very good dynamic compression.

I have a 302 with Trickflow twisted wedge heads (170cfm at .2 lift, 253cfm at .5 lift) and 10.3:1 static compression. The XE cam profile is very aggressive and requires stiffer springs to control the low-lobe lift well. I've got 330lb springs, 165lb on the seat. The cam is the XE270, 218/[email protected] and .512 lift. I haven't been so impressed by camshaft as this one, idle is very good, idle torque is phenomenal, but it will pull to 6k.

I strongly recommend the XE cam profile, I think it would be a good combination for a long stroke big inch pushrod motor.