Anyone still using this Camshaft trick?

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slimjim

slimjim

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Maybe it’s due to my age but, I had no idea a stock bumpstick could even be reground. Just took the OEM cam from a 5.2 magnum to the folks at Crower Cams for a behind the scenes look at how they do it. Anyone else regrinding their camshafts?

 
Yeah a bunch do it. I've had Oregon Cam grind several for me.
 
That's cool.

I would have loved to see the welding.

I saw a crank being welded I wonder if they use the same process.
 
I was hoping to make it up to Barona to see you and Jonny go at it. Also hoping to have Talking Mopars meet my friend from Alpine and owner of the famous Mopar Ranch, Terry Ulmer.

When is the race?
 
go-fish said:
I was hoping to make it up to Barona to see you and Jonny go at it. Also hoping to have Talking Mopars meet my friend from Alpine and owner of the famous Mopar Ranch, Terry Ulmer.

When is the race?
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… Are you saying there’s a mopar ranch in Alpine? lol never enough projects.

The race is July 1st.
 
July 1st is great. I’ll be back in town. I am away on a fire assignment in AZ currently, then going to Oklahoma to drop my son off with Grandpa for some summer vacation.




I told Talking Mopars about Terry and he wants to do a show with him.
 
MOPAROFFICIAL said:
There must be about 4 or 5 mopar ranches.
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I’m working on putting one together with my Dad as well, who has an actual 155 acre ranch. 3 A-bodies, 2 E-bodies, 2 B-bodies, 2 3500 Cummins, and a D100. 6 out of 10 of them run! LOL!
 
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I had a billet steel solid roller reground. I had too-short pushrods in the motor, broke an adjuster, chucked a pushrod, had a roller go sideways. Wrecked the roller, of course, but the cam was not hurt too much to regrind.
I lost quite a bit of lift, got a little more duration that I didn't want, and lost at least three tenths. NOT the cam grinders fault.
There is a difference between fixing a hurt cam, and regrinding a good cam for more performance .
 
I currently have a cam at Oregon cam grinders getting reground to go into the 5.9 magnum in my Duster.
 
Demonic said:
Racer Brown will regrind a cam for you also, and even Parkerize it.
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A few years back when I was building the 360 currently in my Duster I called up Jim to have him grind me a roller cam as I used a junkyard 5.9L Magnum short block. I brought up the idea of regrinding the factory cam and he said he doesn't like doing that as it takes off the outer hardened layer of the camshaft material. Sounds like Parkerizing/re-hardening is a necessity more than a nice option. I didn't notice the Crower guys re-hardening the cam after it was ground in the OP's linked video...?

It took Jim a while to find a core to grind a new cam as they were in short supply back then but I was fine with waiting and paying more for a better part which I understand isn't the OP's situation. Cam works awesome btw, put at least 10k miles on it so far and couldn't be happier with the performance. In fact I drove my Duster to work this morning lol.
 
MopaR&D said:
A few years back when I was building the 360 currently in my Duster I called up Jim to have him grind me a roller cam as I used a junkyard 5.9L Magnum short block. I brought up the idea of regrinding the factory cam and he said he doesn't like doing that as it takes off the outer hardened layer of the camshaft material. Sounds like Parkerizing/re-hardening is a necessity more than a nice option. I didn't notice the Crower guys re-hardening the cam after it was ground in the OP's linked video...?

It took Jim a while to find a core to grind a new cam as they were in short supply back then but I was fine with waiting and paying more for a better part which I understand isn't the OP's situation. Cam works awesome btw, put at least 10k miles on it so far and couldn't be happier with the performance. In fact I drove my Duster to work this morning lol.
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I wonder if that’s necessary for a roller cam. I can easily see the need for a flat tappet. Looking at Summit Racing, the only Crower Cam listed for a 5.2/5.9 magnum looks back ordered by 3 months.
 
slimjim said:
I wonder if that’s necessary for a roller cam. I can easily see the need for a flat tappet. Looking at Summit Racing, the only Crower Cam listed for a 5.2/5.9 magnum looks back ordered by 3 months.
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I'm not sure, but the cam I had ground by Jim was a hydraulic roller and he still recommended going with a fresh core over a regrind. Probably also has to do with the specs we agreed on, it's likely the profile wouldn't have been re-ground easily on a factory camshaft. But he specifically noted that preference was in relation to the hardening issue.

It's probably not a big deal, he wasn't adamant about it and plenty of people here on FABO are running reground cams without any problems.
 
MopaR&D said:
I'm not sure, but the cam I had ground by Jim was a hydraulic roller and he still recommended going with a fresh core over a regrind. Probably also has to do with the specs we agreed on, it's likely the profile wouldn't have been re-ground easily on a factory camshaft. But he specifically noted that preference was in relation to the hardening issue.

It's probably not a big deal, he wasn't adamant about it and plenty of people here on FABO are running reground cams without any problems.
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I think it has to do with how much they have to grind for the desired new cam specs. Ken at Oregon Cams told me the same thing. When I told him what specs of the cam I wanted, he advised against a regrind because he said it would have gone past the hardening. I don't think it's an issue with milder regrinds.

Ken even took it further and said there are some factory cores with deeper hardening than others. He rattled off casting numbers of those that have the deeper hardening.
 
This ^ correct about steel roller cam regrinds. On a few occasions, I have wanted non-Chebby cams ground on 104 LSA by Comp. Every time I was told the depth of hardening would not allow that much metal removal, 106 was the tightest.
 
I run regrinds especially with early Hemi's. Try to even find a used Desoto Hemi cam. But you have to be able to grind it within the existing lobe also.
 
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