Camcraft Newsletter

March 1, 2000

Editor: Charles Reichard

 

Dear Customers,

Warmer weather has found us at last. We’ve had temperatures above 60 degrees with sun. It’s almost too nice. I am sure we will have a little more bad weather coming before long.

Racing season is almost here. Several tracks in Virginia open April 1st and others soon follow. Drag racing has started in Delaware. We hope to be there soon.

Open House

We have postponed our open house until May. Look for details in next month’s newsletter. There is just too much happening right now to do a good job with it. We are thinking about May 6th.

Construction, Grinder refurbishing, etc.

 

     I want to apologize for our poor service the last few weeks. There has been so much going on with our construction, working on the grinders, and trying to be sure we have sufficient inventory now as well as getting future stock orders in place. I feel as if I’m on a treadmill constantly accelerating. Harriett has moved into her new office and with any luck her old office will be painted and I will be moved in this weekend. That will leave the front showroom area to finish off. I think we will be back to normal in about 2 or 3 weeks.

We are nearly finished refurbishing our first cam grinder. It will be better than new when it is finished. We are using higher grade bearings everywhere, spindle tolerances are much closer and the table has been scraped. Steve Bresnahan of Northstar Machine is doing the work. After watching Steve work and seeing the close tolerances he can adhere to, I think I would rather have a properly rebuilt machine than a new one. We will be doing the other grinder in about 3 or 4 weeks.

 

Nitrous news

 

We have placed our initial order for Nitrous systems and refill station. Hopefully it will all be in place by about the 10th or 15th.   We are going to handle Compucar and Nitrous Works. We will have a pump system for refills rather than the Transfer type. Remember only Compucar has a lifetime warranty on their solenoids.

 

Cam trends

 

Last year we experimented with some 112 & 113 lobe separation cams for restricted oval track cars. They were pretty successful. When using wide centerlines it is necessary to reduce duration @ .050 about 4 degrees or more. The result is a really flat power curve. It is usually necessary to change the fuel curve to get maximum power. This means more than just changing jet sizes. The trend toward low lift, high rocker ratio intake lobes continues.

 

New BB Chevy Hydraulic Roller cams

 

We are offering hydraulic roller cams for the Generation VI big block Chevy. We will have standard and reverse rotation cams available and we will offer a reverse rotation cam to match the stock std rotation marine cam. This means you will be able to repower older boats that had a reverse rotation engine even though reverse rotation engines are no longer offered in the Gen. VI version. Crane offers a reverse rotation billet but it is roughed in to a .400/.380 lobe lift which is way too big for most hydraulic roller profiles. We are also having smaller billets made for the Gen. IV & V engines as well. Standard rotation cams are available now and the reverse rotation billets should be ready in about a month.

 

          As always, We thank you for your support.

 

Yours truly,

 

Charles, Harriett, Clarence & Chuck