Cannondaleriders

I am having five sets (for now at least) of cams custom made.

They are in EN40B and will be micro-finished and nitrided. The decomp pin slot in the exhaust cam is to machined with a curved bottom for more radial support of the decomp pin, and the portion of the cam core beneath the pin extended for further support still.

They will be a little hotter than stock but not bonkers. Final profile is not yet finalised but, suffice to say, they wanted to know everything about the application before they would commit to doing the job.

They will make any profile we desire but, for now, I have just ordered five sets of whatever they think is best.

They have tested the stock followers I sent down with the cams and recommended they be used with the new cams after nitriding, micro-finishing and then given a DLC (same as casidium) coating.

DLC (diamond-like-coating) is so hard that the followers have to be micro-finished or the followers would just 'file' the cam away. It also lowers the cF.

Anyone wanting some of these cams, some followers treated, some wrist pins DLCd (I am having one done if I can get a new stock-size pin) please let me know ASAP so I can inform them of numbers needed.

I am, of course, having twenty followers done to go with the cams.

Too late to change my mind now 'cos I paid for it already...

Thanks for reading...

Cool!I will wait for dyno test unless you want to send a set over for testing?Wistech has one quad setup with a clear valve cover so any wear would be noticed before damage occurs.

The hope is that these just won't wear, period.

These are the same spec as current F1 and the likes of the Prodrive 24hr Ferarris etc. No wear after 24hrs of flat-out racing at high rpms. I wasn't confident to use any other solution offered so far, and the stock cams are just tufftrided, which is a very shallow carbon surface heat treatment that, once worn, might just as well not be there.

You cannot currently get any better, quality wise, than what I have ordered, which is why I ordered them.

I wanted this sort of solution as I want to enjoy my ride, not keep fixing it.

The five cam sets and follower treatment is costing me just over ????2000 with the vat (sales tax @17.5%), about $4100US. Plus I have to buy twenty cam followers first so that cost will be added. I have made enquiries with Cord at BWatv for them. I am absolutely not doing this to make money, I just figured you guys would appreciate my efforts and reciprocate if I need something in future. Let's pull together to keep the 'Dale's rolling I say....

Do it right and you only have to do it once.

I will send you some to test if you like, but the profile is only going to be a mild increase over stock, I expect something like 12 or 15 deg longer with some more lift. I expect I will run my inlets a little later than stock to preserve idle quality, extend the top end power and rpm and sacrifice a little through the mid range as, if I'm honest, it had too much through the middle in stock form.

You will have more dyno data than I do at the moment, from engines of differing specs. I will only have one motor and that will have other mods too, some of them perhaps 'unconventional' to you guys. It is unlikely that you will be using the same dyno as I do and I will be using 10" slick racing tyres on mine to map and dyno it, so that adds another variable that you might not have.

If you have a specific profile that you want ground then say so as they can do whatever we want. The blanks are, of course, just a CNC turning and milling job and the the profile will be done on a different machine, so setting up to do some other profile will be easy. There will probably be a small additional setup charge. They might even 'waive' it if I ask nicely, since I'm having a batch done.........?....

Manufacturing them in this way will allow more lift per degree before the physical strength is overcome so we will be able to run more radical profiles that we couldn't do before, for anyone wanting to use big lift with relatively short durations. A Ti valve head will allow more lift/deg still.

I have a spare swing arm and axle so maybe I should create a 'frame' for dynoing the thing with full access to the engine. Anyone got a scrap frame for me to 'chop about'?

The list of possibles is getting longer......

We use slicks on dyno also.Send a set over and we will see what they do.Almost everyone here has been burned by folks who claim to have the best.I feel most truly believed they did as I am sure you do.But its just best to do these things in small steps and test before getting them out there.Kinda gun shy here at least I am.Hope you understand.

I fully understand.

My confidence in this company is based upon the work I have seen for myself with my own eyes, on projects which are absolutely 'money-no-object'. If they chose to use Newman, I am happy to do too.

The material selection is the same as current F1 and they are used at 20,000 rpm now. If theirs last, ours will.

The DLC makes the component much less reliant on oil too, so if you have a slight starving problem, there shouldn't be a problem, not until they sieze in the head anyway!

I'll send some when they're done, no problem.

I wouldn't expect silly dyno numbers from them though, as they're only a 'mild' increase over stock. I figured there would be more demand for mild and sensible than flat-out bonkers, especially iven the rest of the problems we seem to endure!

I'll send a stock pin too with DLC (casidium) for you to test next time you're using a stock rod.

Cheers

Wayne

For sure.I agree a reliable cam is more important than HP anyway since ours are hit and miss especially in hardening department.Question.Are you going to have them make them with multiple pin holes for degreeing them in to different specs or are you having one set of holes for a given degree?Most new stockers only have one setting and they are way off from stock spec of 106 deg.

Sounds very promising.A big problem we found with the stock cams wearing was the hardness.Alot of the stock cams made are not heatreated properly.The harness on stock cams range as low as 37 rc up to 62rc talk about terrible quality control.The majority checked right around48-50rc which is soft.A good cam should be heatreated from 58-62 rc 60 ideal.Any harder than 62 rc chipping seems to occur. Stock cams testing at this hardness seem to hold up very well.Make sure the base metal is heatreated to these parameters or no coating will help.The stock buckets also seem to be borderline hard enough although much more consistant the ones I've checked have ranged from 48rc-55rc average checked about 52. Around 54-55 is ideal.Cwr made "high performance cams" for us in the past and were total garbage for top price. Cams gave slight loss of power, but even worse started wearing within a 1/2hr.Grinds were very and close to top quality but were made too soft .When hardness checked there were on areage 49 rc and never harder than 51rc. and very inconsistant throughout the lobe. For the decomps make sure the pivot pin has been hardened too or will also fail fast. Cwr also sent out rebuilt decomps with mild steel for pins and were only good for under 10hrs. With your coatings and the proper harness it will probably make top notch cams, but run for them for a while than inspect sometimes the best ideas fail and other times they far surpass whats expected. Good Luck and keep everyone posted on your progress.Not to get off the subject but when doing your own head make sure to inspect the bucket bores with the valve springs out. On the bucket opposite the decomp on the exhuast cam probably about 80-90% of them stick.There's a casting seem that grows over time after being heatcycled it relieves the stress in the aluminum causing the bucket to stick. Only way to properly fix it is to machine because only grows in one area.This has proven to be a big problem causing damage to our valve train. Good thing once machined has yet to reoccur.You have some very good ideas looks like we have another member to the R&D team!

Good feedback guys. The heads and cases are getting cryo'd first and then the tappet bores done, as doing the cryo can make the casting move a little sometime. Once cryo'd and the machining sorted though, they should stay put.

With the followers being Nitrided they will 'grow' a tad most likely, so we will all need to check clearances, but I expect with your experience you guys would do so anyway.

'Plasma-Nitriding' goes much deeper than tuftriding, which really is just a surface coating, and the end result is very tough. Brittlement is not a problem. There is no coating needed on the cams with Nitrided EN40B. I did ask about a DLC on the cams too, but he said they could, but there really was no benefit in doing so in his opinion.

When I told him the spec I wanted, he more or less said "My word, you really DO want these right don't you?" My spec surpassed what he felt would be 'adequate' for the job.

The cams are being Micro-Finished and Nitrided, while the buckets will be Nitrided, Micro-finished and given a DLC.

'Performance' has not been the priority at the moment, but they will be better than stock. Let's 'bottom' the reliability before we try breaking any records eh?

If these are the complete solution then we can look at developing the profiles some more.

Has anyone compared the similarities between some of the Ducati V-twins with our motors? I suspect that Newmans experience with WSB on them would yield some good results for us come further development time....

By decomp 'pivot-pin', I assume you mean the weight pivot pin.....?

I suspect it will be best just to make some and send them to you for you to look at....

Cheers Boys... and Girls maybe...

"'pivot-pin', I assume you mean the weight pivot pin"

Actually meant the actuator pin that contacts the bucket and weight sorry should have phrased it better.

We're not short of 'R', we just need to all work on the 'D'!!!

Hee-Hee!!

Let's face it, if these things were only reliable they'd be pretty unbeatable.

I bet no-one gets tired of the performance or handling but they must get tired of fixing them!

When we've got the reliability sorted, maybe we can do something with the looks......?