Don Terrill’s Speed-Talk

Hi

Does anyone know where we can order camshafts blanks that we can grind at our shop ?

I was told they were being made in Turkey , I talked to a few companies at SEMA a few years ago but lost my notes !

Anyway we need aircooled VW ones and also early Fiats ,

Thanks for your help

Might contact, "Camking", here??

pdq67

https://www.kautex.de/en/automotive/cwc ... n-castings

http://camshaftmachine.com/

I found these guys
https://www.estasusa.com/contact.php

They are making them in Turkey according to the website ,

Sent them an email this morning but no answer yet ,

Maybe you'll find a company I missed, but each time I've gone down the rabbit hole searching for a company to make pistons, cams, bearings et al, for obsolete engines, they say, "How many thousand units are you prepared to prepay?"

Pistons are easy , just $100-$150 each ,

Cranks are also made by SCAT and others , just lots of $$$

These camshaft blanks are being made , just not sure by who , or if they are exclusive to someone ,

Camking hopefully will see this and comment ,

cheers

californiamilleghia wrote: ↑Mon Jul 27, 2020 7:36 pm Pistons are easy , just $100-$150 each ,

Yes, only sometimes and only if one wants forgings and is prepared to wait. But then, for some obsolete engines, the current forging blanks aren't tall enough for the old engines with more than 2" compression height. BTDT.

californiamilleghia wrote: ↑Mon Jul 27, 2020 7:36 pmCranks are also made by SCAT and others , just lots of $$$

Once again, have you actually asked SCAT how long would be the wait for a custom billet crankshaft? It's not months, but years.

californiamilleghia wrote: ↑Mon Jul 27, 2020 7:36 pmThese camshaft blanks are being made , just not sure by who , or if they are exclusive to someone ,

Again, been down that rabbit hole and no one I've found wants to bother casting cam cores in the few units. They work in tons.

californiamilleghia wrote: ↑Mon Jul 27, 2020 7:36 pmCamking hopefully will see this and comment , cheers

It is to be hoped. The best thing to happen lately is CNC is bringing down the cost of steel billet cams into the wildly possible range.

californiamilleghia wrote: ↑Mon Jul 27, 2020 12:00 pm Does anyone know where we can order camshafts blanks that we can grind...?

I was told they were being made in Turkey ,...!

... we need aircooled VW ones and also early Fiats ,

Thanks for your help

Estas is the company you want. Great source for the Porsche & VW opposed cyl engines etc. Yes, the Estas cores are the ones from Turkey, and are super-quality cores.

In fact they are so hard that you cannot use cheapo offshore aftermarket (softer-material) mating parts because the cams will literally expose the inferior parts for what they are, chew them up and spit them out. I advise to use Estas high grade cores only with original factory German materials...or other higher grade, upscale components.

Scat sells vw cam blanks individually, and you can get chinese copies individually. I'm not a fan of either tho.

The grand majority of cam blanks are cast by CWC,
FOR "Engine Power Components", where they are semi finished.
That's where they come from, tho not sure if you want to go that far up the supply chain.
https://www.engpwr.com/

While it's not a VW, Oregon Cam Grinders found me a 2-3/4-7 swap big block mopar billet roller cam core. I'd give Ken a call.

Thanks Guys ,

Still no reply from Estas , I will send them an email to the main office in Turkey tonight ,

I am first trying to figure out who makes these blanks , their "buy in" may be so high its not interesting , or its not normally in stock ,

the 1600 cc aircooled bug motor is the easy one , millions of those motors still on the road ,
but the early 1200 cc 36hp motors stopped in 1960 for the USA market so its going to be a little harder to find stock ,

and then the Type 4 / 914 motors

So cam grinders just regrind your 36hp old cam , that is what ISKY does,
But I know there are new blanks available , its justs just finding them ,

Plus at least in the 1600cc cams there was a big problem of flat cams after only a few hours running about 10 years ago , everyone pointed their finger at the other guy ,
Never found out if it was bad cams , bad lifters , too heavy valve springs , no zinc in oil or some other voodoo !

anyway thanks for your help

Machining blanks is easy*, it's the heat treat that is the hold up.

* assuming you don't need a gear on it, then your sources narrow.

LSM will make custom billet steel cores (and can do gears on the cam). They were about $500 a pop 8 years ago, min. order of 6. These are unground. You'll be in another $400 or so for that.

Speed costs money, how fast do you want to go?

Thanks , these are already made in batches in Turkey and probably other places ,
they are way less than $100 each at retail.

and we have a cam grinding machine ......

californiamilleghia wrote: ↑Tue Jul 28, 2020 1:53 pm Thanks , these are already made in batches in Turkey and probably other places ,
they are way less than $100 each at retail.

and we have a cam grinding machine ......

Cast cam cores are likely going to be only sold in large quantities, which you already mentioned you know.

I've heard talks of a few thousand for a single order.

If you're really serious, a billet cam core is much better than cast. It fixed a lot of problems we were dealing with vs. a welded OEM core and a new cast blank.

hoffman900 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 28, 2020 2:01 pm

californiamilleghia wrote: ↑Tue Jul 28, 2020 1:53 pm Thanks , these are already made in batches in Turkey and probably other places ,
they are way less than $100 each at retail.

and we have a cam grinding machine ......

Cast cam cores are likely going to be only sold in large quantities, which you already mentioned you know.

I've heard talks of a few thousand for a single order.

If you're really serious, a billet cam core is much better than cast. It fixed a lot of problems we were dealing with vs. a welded OEM core and a new cast blank.

Yup welded OEM core are hit and miss for hardness and we went through that in the 90's with VW cams when there was tons of beetles on the road up here.
It was hard to get a decent core to start with and the hardness was not very good.

WE had a local grinder that did locomotive cams and we had him weld a ton of them but we still had a few issues but not as many as sending cores to a cam grinder in the US for welding and regrinding.

The guy we used would weld grind and harden them before final finishing. They were more money to do that way but in the end we had no issues after that.
Welding cast cams is a lost art not and I am not sure if anyone still does the hard face overlay welding of cast cores because of the enviro issues and health risks in doing it.