Camcraft Newsletter

July 1, 2003
Editor: Charles Reichard
www.camcraftcams.com

Dear Customers,         

          July is here and the rain seems to be staying with us. From the first part of March to the end of June is a long time to go without a rain free weekend. We have had some nice weekend days but the 28^th and 29^th have been about the only clear weekend since March. Even then we had a brief but violent thunderstorm Friday evening about 5:00. It is too early to know how much this has affected the racing community. This weekend rain thing has pretty much blanketed most of the East coast. I would really hate to be selling racing tires or running a racetrack for a living this season.

          June 30 was a tough day for us. In the space of a couple of hours we learned of the passing of long time customer Sonny Perkins of Perkins Motor Parts in Goldsboro, NC and the wife of Dean Martinson of Martinson Performance in Brooklyn, WI. We offer our condolences to both families. 

New summer hours

          Don’t forget we are closing at 2:00 pm on Fridays. We will work extra hours during the week to make up for the lost time. Since most customers want their parts in hand by Friday this will let us do this more often. It will also give our employees a few extra hours on the weekends to beat heavy traffic out of town. Please advise the appropriate people of this change. 

We still have our Chevy Monza racecar for sale. Check out our March Newsletter on our website for pictures and details. We had the car out at Capitol Raceway last weekend to get it recertified and for driver Jamie Sullivan to get his competition license. All went well so the car is now certified for another 3 years. We will be at US-13 Dragway on July 4^th where Jamie will make his Super Pro debut. Considering Saturday was his first transbrake experience he was cutting some pretty fair lights. All were under .543

Winners.

          It is still hard to find any winners as many tracks continue to get rained out.

          Pettit Racing Engines powered cars to 1^st and 2^nd place finishes in the Stafford 100 SK Modified race recently. 1^st was Eric Bennet in the #54 car and second was Chris Jones in the #39 car. Jimmy Peterson won in the #17 Late Model at Stafford as well. At Thompson Speedway a Pettit engine powered Mike Christopher to an SK Modified win in the #13 car.

          In Tennessee, Lincoln County Auto Parts powered Jerry Ashley to victory at Winchester Speedway in the #7 Late Model. Lincoln County owner Alan Holmes has 3 wins at Winchester and 3 wins at Moulton Speedway in Alabama.      

The following has been published here a year ago but bears repeating. Especially important is the part about the need to figure top speed for street cars as well as drag cars.

Some thoughts on choosing the proper cam.

1-    Short duration cams with wider lobe separations usually yield flatter torque curves

2-    Longer rod motors prefer a shorter duration cam with wider lobe separation

3-    Most unported heads approach 85 or 95 % of peak flow at .400 to .450 lift and do not need or want a maximum valve lift over .540 to.555. Often a low cam lift with 1.65 or 1.7 ratio rockers is very helpful on the intake side as long as lift is kept to about .550. Exhaust is less critical with 1.5 or 1.55 being the most popular.

4-    The benefit of high ratio rockers is faster valve movement and the added lift is frequently detrimental in unported heads. It often helps to utilize a lower cam lift with high ratio rockers.

5-    The important numbers on a dyno sheet are about a thousand RPM above and below peak torque and peak horsepower. Peak numbers are for bragging purposes and high peak numbers do not win races.

We have many people (especially small block Chevy owners) who say they want a cam to make good power to at least 6500 rpm. Take a moment and figure how fast 6500 rpm is in high gear (not overdrive). A typical car with 3.70 gears and 28-inch tall tires will be going 145+ mph. Making power at 6500 rpm will sacrifice power at 3500 rpm where you need it much more to launch the car. There is no point is having 6500 rpm power when you go through the lights at 5500.

If you’re not running a Camcraft cam, You’re probably following one

We thank you for your continued support. 

Yours truly,

Charles, Harriett, Clarence, Chuck, & Tony