COMP Cams LST solid roller lobes... "Top Secret"?

[Charliesauto]

"So Comp has a crystal ball?? They can tell who's who on the phone?"

When I call or email direct to my engine builder tech guy he recognizes who I am and that I have purchased several hundred cams. No crystal ball required.


"Who do you think pays Comps bills, the so called "hard core guys" like you ( Laugh) or the tens of thousands of customers that fall into the first category?"

Obviously the first category is the most lucrative part of their business.


"You act like Comp is the only company that has to deal with time wasters and bargain seekers."

Not just Comp, any cam supplier has to deal with the above.


"Their promotional blabber is, "let us help you pick the right cam, our experience will set you right". so according to you, that's just all bullshit."

I don't read their promotional blabber.


"Tell me, if you rang a roofing company and got two completely different quotes for the same job, would you trust them enough to give them that job?"

I had my roof replaced about 2 years ago. I called a well respected roofer I know that has been in the business 30 + years and told him to handle it, did not ask for a quote. When he finished, he handed me an invoice for 14K and I paid him, very smooth transaction.

[BradH]

Well, this thread has taken an unexpected turn. In no particular order...

My request for lobe specs from COMP was "for informational purposes only." Their response struck me as absurd, given they're actively promoting their LST lobes and have even published the names of at least a dozen of the lobe families.

I've owned and used cams from half a dozen different grinders. Some have been spec'd by me, some by the cam company, and some by member PRH, who I've worked closely with for about 20 years on cylinder heads and dyno testing.

IIRC, the last three cams I've purchased have been two COMPs through PRH (my last solid flat tappet and my current solid roller) and a solid roller from Mike Jones. I ended up changing my engine combination in a couple of key areas between the time I purchased Mike's cam (heads and compression ratio) and finishing the build, and sold it to another ST member without having tested it.

Time for me to go walk our recent adopt-a-dog... in the rain. A new day has begun.

[hoffman900]

Billy Godbold has not been secret about these LST designs at all. Pretty easy to find information on them and what he's doing/did.

Probably Comp's stance is that being "un-symetrical" (Harold's term), lobe centers and such will be different than what people are use to. So 1) the tech support doesn't know what the designs really do 2) if they did, they would have to lecture customers and the customer will probably still tell them they're wrong. Since the "top secret" is pretty easy to find on the internet, I would just take that as a passive aggressive general public response from Comp.

Hell, I think Mike gets flack for his designs looking small, when they perform like they should. People openly have told him he was wrong here, which is laughable. Everyone just looks at the .050" number, max lift, and lobe center, and calls it a day.

I'm surprised there is even a market for any of this, tbh. Outside of high end custom work or something oddball, all these cam grinders are sitting on thousands of designs for something like a SBC and the like... at this point they should market that stuff (and probably will) as I think the industry is going to contract in the next 10-15 years.

[BradH]

Billy Godbold has not been secret about these LST designs at all. Pretty easy to find information on them and what he's doing/did.

The background info and tech (hype?) explaining the new lobes, yes.

The actual lobe specs for the latest lobe profile series they're promoting, no. That's the part where COMP basically told me to pi$$ off.

I'm surprised there is even a market for any of this, tbh... as I think the industry is going to contract in the next 10-15 years.

As others have mentioned already, R&D for new products in a shrinking business ecosystem is going to be hard to justify, especially w/ the nature of the latest mergers & acquisitions.

[CamKing]

Comp makes their money, by selling marginal cams to people who believe their marketing BS, and people who think those top running race cars with Comp's decals on them, are actually running Comp Cams.
Back when Scott Bloomquist was winning everything in Dirt Latemodels, He was being Paid to run Comp's decals on his cars, yet he was running my cams.
The cup teams I worked with, also ran Comp decals.
It seems it's much easier to pay a winner to promote your products, them make them a winner.