Hello all,
"why don't manufacturers ptu a hotter cam in cars to begin with" is
what you are asking right? An I am not an expert, yet I do know a little
here and there. Enough to tackle this one anyway.
They don't do it for a number of reasons, but the most important is
driveability. Cams become less "streetable" as they increase in performance.
Your car is driven over a wide range of conditions, often overloaded,
with lots of stop and go traffic. Hot cams do not idle well below certain
ranges. Have you ever sat next to a Camaro at a stop light and thought it
would stall any minute?
Hot cams provide a trade off in bottom end torque. Cars that are
overloaded need to smoke the clutch to get it off the line.
Increase lobe hight needs stronger valve springs and more compression
puts more stress on the lifters as well as the valve train. Increased wear
will result.
Cost is also a factor since all other parts need to be uprated to work
as a system. A race engine is a sum of it's parts.Swapping out a camshaft
does not a race car make.
And last but not least, since your power will be developed in a more
narrow band of engine RPMs, (loss of bottom end torque, remember?), it just
takes much more skill to frive the car. And skill is not something the
average driver has. Any loser with $14.00 and correctable vision can get a
drivers lic. in the USA.
Does that help? If not, write me, and I can direct you to the sources
that I read and understand. A camshaft should be selected to the driving you
intend to do. The camshaft they use in a dragster is not the same as the one
used in the same engine for NASCAR. You must decide what you want to do with
the car, and then pick the cam. Schnieder and Isky cams have customer
hotlines and can recommend a grind for you after you tell them what you want
to do. They still make/ grind cams for Alpines. Lou
-----Original Message-----
>If the cam does need to be replaced, I'm going with a bit more agressive
>grind this time. I figure if I spend enough time and money on it, the
>Alpine will be ready for the trip to SUNI III in July. Steve Sage
>
>
>Can someone give us ( me ) a quick lesson on how and why a different cam
>adds performance to an engine? Pardon my ignorance but maybe there are
>others who are also new to the inner workings of engines and are as
>curious as I am about how these things work. This might sound stupid but
>if you can add performance by switching to a different cam, why didn't
>they put a different cam in the engine to begin with? Cost? Engine
>longevity? Driveability?
>
>Rob Nanzig
>67SV
>
>
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