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Originally Posted by swifty_ano  Hey guys...looking at getting my cams ground...how much do i tell them I need taken off? pm me if you can. or post up here  others might want to know aswell. |
Your cams generally need to be made bigger so they build your stock cam up by hardwelding, then regrind to the profile of a master they have.
Cam grinding outfits are mostly just copiers. They get a cam they want to copy and put in their grinder. The machine follows the profile very slowly and grinds the shape onto a large iron disk. This is then stamped and becomes for eg profile no. 10245 and info about the profile is entered into the database along with what is good for ect. and the ground master (which is just a big cast disk) goes on the rack. When you want that cam they hardweld your stocker, put the mastercam (iron disk) into the grinder on one side and your cam on the other and copy the profile across. Thats it. To develope different cam profiles is a totally different kettle of fish and needs very expensive and complicated machines and testing. Mostly only big engine manufacturers have this capacity.
Having said that though, what you can do with a grinding outfit who understand cam theory well is alter your cams by using differnt profiles from their stock of masters onto the intake and exhaust fror eg. a takagawa z40 intake profile and a r20 exhaust etc. also the lobe centres can be placed where you want and the timing of the cam altered by moving the lobes compared to TDC. This can also easily be done at the sprocket though.
You will find all the aftermarket cams and their various names will be copies of some previously well known cam usually for honda applications that have been around for years. Find out what cam they are based on and design around what others have successfully done before with that cam. If you want to go grinding outfit you need to know exactly what you want or know they can do a cam that someone else has figured out using their mastercams.