Comp Cams passes off 50 year old technology, as "New" cutting edge tech.

[midnightbluS10]

Looks like they've been selling these since at least 2021? I see you mentioned something about their LST lobes in this thread too.

viewtopic.php?t=63567

[1980RS]

Years ago when Comp was still a new cam co. back in like 1977 there was an ad on the back of one of my Hot Rod magazines that said "New variable duration camshafts from Comp Cams". Now, I thought that was a pretty good idea at the time but never ordered one. Fast forward to the late 80's and I see the new Magnum Solid lifter cam line from Comp, Humm.....and the specs looked familiar to me so back to the old issue of the Hot Rod mag and they sure looked the same. Got on the phone to call Comp about this, I got Scooter Brothers to talk with me (pretty nice guy) about these cams. Scooter told me that it was indeed the same cam with a new marketing ploy to sell the cams, lol. I did ask if these were any good or were they all smoke and mirrors. Nope he told me and said these cams had a "soft ramp" and you could vary the lash from .015 to .030 without hurting anything. I ordered one for my BBC, the 282-S and it worked ok, but when I started testing different lash settings like Scooter told me well then the cam worked even better. I still have that cam to this day and it has worked well, all all Comp sure does use marketing to push their products, it's just too bad that their flat tappet stuff is all junk now IMO.

[Dave Koehler]

Which came first? The ads or the cam?
In the 70s I was impressed or shocked by the 2 full page or more ads in every National Dragster with the little voice going "seriously?"
That had to be a serious ad budget to pull that off.
It must have worked as I moved a fair amount of those High Energy and Magnum street cams to those that insisted.

Memory is probably fuzzy but didn't Crane do some inverse cams or at least promote them as such?

[Tom68]

Which came first? The ads or the cam?
In the 70s I was impressed or shocked by the 2 full page or more ads in every National Dragster with the little voice going "seriously?"
That had to be a serious ad budget to pull that off.
It must have worked as I moved a fair amount of those High Energy and Magnum street cams to those that insisted.

Memory is probably fuzzy but didn't Crane do some inverse cams or at least promote them as such?

I think there's been lots, in fact I think there are lots. Funny that the FT XE seller is slow to the party with an aggressive roller.

[Tom68]

20230116_172754.jpg

[CamKing]

In the 70s I was impressed or shocked by the 2 full page or more ads in every National Dragster with the little voice going "seriously?"
That had to be a serious ad budget to pull that off.

One thing Comp has, is a serious advertising budget.
In 2006, HOTROD magazine did a multi page article on my cam balancing system.
Before it went to print, Someone high up at Comp Cams heard about it and called HOTROD's publisher. They threatened to pull their advertising, and it almost got the writer of the article fired. They told the publisher, "if you want to write about cams, you come to us". The writer stood up for me, and the article was printed, but down the edge of each page of the article was a 1/3 page ad for Comp Cams. That's the kind of power Comp has.
Right after the article came out, Ed Iskenderian called me, laughing, and said "I didn't know you were bought out by Comp"

[Elroy]

How long do you think they have been testing your lobes ? ... The Rat bastards ..... Lol

We all study each other's lobe designs.
I have data of Ed Winfield lobe designs that were made before I was born. Not to mention current designs from all across the industry.
Harold Brookshire would come by my booth at the PRI show, each year, and he would tell me things about some of my lobe designs, that I didn't even remember.
I came up with my Asymmetrical Inverse lobe designs, by studying how engines reacted differently to the Ultradyne lobe profiles that didn't have lash ramps on the opening side. I just took it one step farther.

Everyone has known for decades, that a slow initial opening, followed by a higher acceleration to get the area needed, was easier on the valvetrain, and could preduce more reliable power. They've also known that that acceleration causes a negative radius, that couldn't be made with conventional cam grinders with 20" diameter grinding wheels. That's why, they all bad-mouthed the heck out of Inverse Radius cams for decades. Because they weren't set up to make them.

The thing is, for a given acceleration rate, the larger the base circle is that you're accelerating from, the large diameter the inverse is, and the larger the grinding wheel can be to grind it. For example a profile with a given acceleration rate that requires a 6" diameter grinding wheel to machine it on a .980" Base Circle, may only require a 16" diameter wheel to grind it on a 1.280" Base Circle.
So with the large journal sizes on the LSx, LT1-Gen 5, and Gen-3 Hemi, you have a much larger base circle for a given lift, them what we could fit on a SB or BB Chevy. This means, with these larger base circles, you can grind a profile with a slower initial opening, and a higher acceleration rate without having to use a smaller diameter grinding wheel.
The only problem is, how do you sell a product, that you've been bad-mouthing for decades ? Simple, just call it something else, and tell everybody you found it by mistake, when you accidentally ran one of your old profiles backwards.

The vast majority of the new LST lobes have more area on the back side of the lobe. Are yours that way as well?

[Dave Koehler]

In the 70s I was impressed or shocked by the 2 full page or more ads in every National Dragster with the little voice going "seriously?"
That had to be a serious ad budget to pull that off.

One thing Comp has, is a serious advertising budget.
In 2006, HOTROD magazine did a multi page article on my cam balancing system.
Before it went to print, Someone high up at Comp Cams heard about it and called HOTROD's publisher. They threatened to pull their advertising, and it almost got the writer of the article fired. They told the publisher, "if you want to write about cams, you come to us". The writer stood up for me, and the article was printed, but down the edge of each page of the article was a 1/3 page ad for Comp Cams. That's the kind of power Comp has.
Right after the article came out, Ed Iskenderian called me, laughing, and said "I didn't know you were bought out by Comp"

I remember that.

[CamKing]

I think my problem with all this is:
In the early days of this industry, it was filled with Snake Oil salesmen, and very few people had the technology or equipment to know if they were buying Snake Oil or not. Very few people had dynos. Checking cams, was normally done in the block with a degree wheel and dial indicator. Flow benches were very rare, and not that accurate.
Then things started to change. Superflow and others started producing dynos and flow benches that were affordable for the professional engine builder, and head porter. Quadrant Scientific started selling the Cam Dr, so people could not only look at the lift and duration of a cam, but the velocity and acceleration rate, and the area of the lobe. These were just a few of the products that made testing and measuring easier and more accurate. By the late 80's, the average professional engine builder had the equipment to measure and test the performance products he was buying, to know if they were producing the gains they were advertised to, or if they were just Snake Oil.
Problem was, it didn't take too long for these testing tools and measuring tools to become marketing tools for the industry. Marketing departments quickly found out, it was easier to fudge the dyno numbers by 10hp, then to actually develop a product that adds 10hp. Then their competitor says, if fudging the numbers for 10hp is good, then 20hp is even better. Now, it's not uncommon to see advertisements with dyno numbers that are off by well over 50hp. Same thing happened with flow benches. Some still use it as a measuring tool, and some advertise numbers that are way above what they actually flow on a calibrated bench. Some have gotten so tired of their competitors elevated flow numbers, that they stopped listing their flow numbers, so they wouldn't get compared to the fake numbers.
Within a couple of decades, the industry has taking all this great technology that was made to educate the engine builders, and distorted it to the point that the waters are so muddied, that it's very hard to see the truth thru the marketing B.S., and the B.S. has 100 times the advertising budget the truth has.

It all reminds me of what Harvey Crane told my dad, when he gave him a tour of Crane Cams, back in the 70's.
He said "Do you want to see how to make money in the cam business?", then Harvey pointed to the pad-lock on the dyno room door.
Back then Harvey knew that it was easier and cheaper to spend money to advertise you have a good product, then to actually develop one.
It seemed like that changed for a couple of decades, but with so many companies in the industry being bought out by venture capital companies who cut development and fire their R&D departments, so they can put all their money into marketing, now we're right back to where we started. Snake oil salesmen, as far as the eye can see.
It's really too bad.

[CamKing]

The vast majority of the new LST lobes have more area on the back side of the lobe. Are yours that way as well?

My Asymmetrical I.R Series, and my AK435 Series are all that way. The First one I designed for the Asymmetrical I.R. series was in 1988

I have multiple other profiles designed that way too. Including Flat Tappet and overhead :Bucket" follower designs.

[Stan Weiss]

The vast majority of the new LST lobes have more area on the back side of the lobe. Are yours that way as well?

This is a Crane "Blueprinted" Pontiac 041 (RAIV) Cam which is a hydraulic flat tappet. I got the Cam Dr data from Ken Crocie / H-O Enterprises. This cam was measured 30+ years ago.

Stan

CAM_______Lift______Opens___Closes__Duration
_________________Deg_BTDC__Deg_ABDC_____________Area____ICL
_________0.00200____38.67_|_108.57_|_327.24_|__26.06_|_124.95
_________0.00600____27.77_|__90.14_|_297.90_|__26.00_|_121.19
_________0.02000____14.78_|__65.40_|_260.18_|__25.78_|_115.31
_________0.05000_____1.45_|__50.18_|_231.64_|__25.27_|_114.37
_________0.10000___-14.18_|__33.72_|_199.54_|__24.05_|_113.95
_________0.15000___-28.41_|__19.15_|_170.75_|__22.12_|_113.78
_________0.20000___-43.49_|___4.01_|_140.51_|__19.43_|_113.75
_________0.25000___-61.28_|_-13.92_|_104.80_|__15.29_|_113.68
_________0.30000___-89.31_|_-41.84_|__48.86_|___7.44_|_113.74

[hoffman900]

I was at an aviation museum recently and they had some fantastic cutaways of some engines. The Wright R-2600 has a roller cam, roller rocker, and hollow sodium-filled exhaust valves - this engine first started up in 1935. The Allison (so General Motors) V-1710 was SOHC, 4 valve per cylinder, with a roller camshaft - designed in 1930. Also looked at a Sopwith Camel engine, build date 1916, roller lifters.

Nothing is new. The ease and which you can control the math is better now, the machining can be better now, and alloy science has progressed, but we're all just repeating what came before. If anything, it's crazy how it took 60-70 years for automobile engines to catch up with 1930s designed aircraft engines. Some parts in these look like something out of a modern racing engine.

[CamKing]

I was at an aviation museum recently and they had some fantastic cutaways of some engines. The Wright R-2600 has a roller cam, roller rocker, and hollow sodium-filled exhaust valves - this engine first started up in 1935. The Allison (so General Motors) V-1710 was SOHC, 4 valve per cylinder, with a roller camshaft - designed in 1930. Also looked at a Sopwith Camel engine, build date 1916, roller lifters.

Nothing is new. The ease and which you can control the math is better now, the machining can be better now, and alloy science has progressed, but we're all just repeating what came before. If anything, it's crazy how it took 60-70 years for automobile engines to catch up with 1930s designed aircraft engines. Some parts in these look like something out of a modern racing engine.

the factory cams in the 1912 Packard were Inverse Radius roller cams.
They also had a compression release ground onto the exhaust lobes.

[hoffman900]

I was at an aviation museum recently and they had some fantastic cutaways of some engines. The Wright R-2600 has a roller cam, roller rocker, and hollow sodium-filled exhaust valves - this engine first started up in 1935. The Allison (so General Motors) V-1710 was SOHC, 4 valve per cylinder, with a roller camshaft - designed in 1930. Also looked at a Sopwith Camel engine, build date 1916, roller lifters.

Nothing is new. The ease and which you can control the math is better now, the machining can be better now, and alloy science has progressed, but we're all just repeating what came before. If anything, it's crazy how it took 60-70 years for automobile engines to catch up with 1930s designed aircraft engines. Some parts in these look like something out of a modern racing engine.

the factory cams in the 1912 Packard were Inverse Radius roller cams.
They also had a compression release ground onto the exhaust lobes.

It's amazing what a HUGE step back automotive engines are. It shows they were about making profit more than anything resembling performance, which to be fair, is what automotive companies are in the business of doing.

[bob460]

I think my problem with all this is:
In the early days of this industry, it was filled with Snake Oil salesmen, and very few people had the technology or equipment to know if they were buying Snake Oil or not. Very few people had dynos. Checking cams, was normally done in the block with a degree wheel and dial indicator. Flow benches were very rare, and not that accurate.
Then things started to change. Superflow and others started producing dynos and flow benches that were affordable for the professional engine builder, and head porter. Quadrant Scientific started selling the Cam Dr, so people could not only look at the lift and duration of a cam, but the velocity and acceleration rate, and the area of the lobe. These were just a few of the products that made testing and measuring easier and more accurate. By the late 80's, the average professional engine builder had the equipment to measure and test the performance products he was buying, to know if they were producing the gains they were advertised to, or if they were just Snake Oil.
Problem was, it didn't take too long for these testing tools and measuring tools to become marketing tools for the industry. Marketing departments quickly found out, it was easier to fudge the dyno numbers by 10hp, then to actually develop a product that adds 10hp. Then their competitor says, if fudging the numbers for 10hp is good, then 20hp is even better. Now, it's not uncommon to see advertisements with dyno numbers that are off by well over 50hp. Same thing happened with flow benches. Some still use it as a measuring tool, and some advertise numbers that are way above what they actually flow on a calibrated bench. Some have gotten so tired of their competitors elevated flow numbers, that they stopped listing their flow numbers, so they wouldn't get compared to the fake numbers.
Within a couple of decades, the industry has taking all this great technology that was made to educate the engine builders, and distorted it to the point that the waters are so muddied, that it's very hard to see the truth thru the marketing B.S., and the B.S. has 100 times the advertising budget the truth has.

It all reminds me of what Harvey Crane told my dad, when he gave him a tour of Crane Cams, back in the 70's.
He said "Do you want to see how to make money in the cam business?", then Harvey pointed to the pad-lock on the dyno room door.
Back then Harvey knew that it was easier and cheaper to spend money to advertise you have a good product, then to actually develop one.
It seemed like that changed for a couple of decades, but with so many companies in the industry being bought out by venture capital companies who cut development and fire their R&D departments, so they can put all their money into marketing, now we're right back to where we started. Snake oil salesmen, as far as the eye can see.
It's really too bad.

You say 50hp off how's this dyno!!!.......
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6W419Ky5Kc