dual pattern camshaft

If you read the last three issues of Mopar Action you'll see that I've covered this topic once again but in a slightly different way. These days I'm using a 470 low deck stroker as my dyno mule and I tested both single pattern as well as a dual pattern cam in it. The 470 has Trick Flow heads on it which have excellent exhaust ports so the first cam from Bullet was a single pattern. They thought that the good exhaust port didn't require a dual pattern cam. That cam made pretty good power but was a little down on torque early in the curve. I switched over to another single pattern cam that was smaller and it made great torque but laid over a tad early. The third cam is a more modern design from Comp with different lobe families used on the intake and exhaust. The lobes are different and the duration is different from intake to exhaust. This third cam made good torque and carried it a little higher. Not everyone has the time to try three different cams on the dyno so I wrote the articles. Rather than spending a couple grand on parts and dyno testing you can read the details for $10!

I will say that it is possible that there is a "perfect" single pattern cam for my 470 which would make more power than the three cams I've tested so far. I'll also say it is very possible that there is a "perfect" dual pattern cam that will make even more power than what I've tested. I don't think anyone has ever figured out cams. Just when I start to think I have a handle on it I see some stuff that I would never dream of. For example, the GM engineers put a 233/276 duration camshaft in the LS7 COPO drag race engine. I've never heard of anyone using 43 degrees of split on a camshaft before and I never ever would've tried it myself. I have no idea how some engineer came up with that idea. I imagine he got laughed at when he first raised his hand and said "how about we try 43 degrees of split".