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Thread: Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

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    Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

    Looking too know what would be the best cams half to put into my pinto,I use the car to do a bit of drifting and diffing and also as a road car aswel. Any ideas would be helpful

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    Re: Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

    It will all depend what you understand as "road use". On and off the track or daily driven? I always use soft cams when I build road engines but in most cases, they give good fun. Cams like Piper BP270 and BP285 are great in road cars. Not to aggressive for the rockers. If the driving is not "daily" you can try BP300. This cam does not have as much lift at TDC as many others in this category. If you want good fuel consumption as well, the BP300 will be over the top. Kent will have equivalent but I'm used to work with Piper.

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    Re: Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

    For milder road, FR30, for fast road with little regard for fuel economy and sacrificing some low end then RL31 for sure, I am not a fan of the BP285 cam, it does perform pretty well, not as good top end as RL31, it is in between FR30 and RL31, what I do not like about the BP285 camshaft it that the inlet lobes are VERY pointy

    They have almost a square corner right next to full lift and these cams often wear out long before an RL31 cam ever will, I have found that BP285 is the most common performance pinto camshaft that will wear the most, the inlet lobes often have two thick ridges outside where the cam was wiping the rocker, it the cam has worn down badly like you find with std cams in high mileage std pinto engines, if you observe a BP285 cam profile lifting a valve, watch the cam lobe to rocker wiping action, the square corner I speak of hits the rocker pad at medium lift and keeps wiping on this almost sharp edge throughout almost all of the upper lift duration, not good in terms of cam lobe wear vs most other pinto cams, there is a big difference here

    If you use double springs and any of the usual cams like RL31 there is a lot LESS risk of wearing out a cam lobe, the pressure is higher but the lobe shape is much better with a nice rounded shape around full lift, square corners will dig into the cam lobe like hell, I have never seen an RL31, HT1, BF63, etc camshaft that has been worn hardly at all, the more upper lift duration the profile has the less likely it is to wear, fact, the more pointy the profile is with poor high lift duration the more likely it is to wear

    Cams always wear out around the peak of the lobe, never at low lift, use a profile with decent upper lift duration and low seat timing, they are the best profiles to use, RL31 being a good example of this, FR30 is a spiky profile bit it will live with suitable mildly uprated single springs from kent

    I completely agree with 95%+ of what Dirk has to say and for good reason, he knows his engine tuning, I just want to give my honest opinion of this cam wear issue and what profile may be your best choice, for the above reasons I would choose FR30 or RL31, and not much in between, can choice is one or the other unfortunately you cannot have everything unless you choose RL31 and use throttle bodies then you will have it all! decent power and reasonable economy

    Have a good evening
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    Re: Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

    to be fair i cant see the fr30 providing enough "umph" for drifting, even if running on 45's (which are probably too big for this cam aswell) i think you would be lucky to see much more than 140bhp with this cam, i would be looking at the rl31 cam or something along them lines though, plus several people do use 190bhp 2.1 pintos with ht1 cams on the road and they think its not to bad, you just got to keep the revs over 2-2500rpm, i personnally would hate that but as some people have told me, it doesn't really phase them keeping it above 2k, you just drive around in a lower gear than usuall.

    all depends whats your cuppa tea really.
    its not dead till it's buried!


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    Re: Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

    FR30 and RL31 are indeed good cams (and there are more in the list). If you use twin Webers, RL31 will give more power than the FR30, that's for sure. I've been using RL31 in autocross engines for a very long time. But I've never had any problems with cam wear in the BP285. But I always use very soft springs on all my engines. In road engines, I never fit double springs. Fit springs with 75 up to 80 kg at full lift. I guess this can explain the unusual fast wear. Or maybe you had old Piper castings. The latest Piper cams I had where MUCH better. The grinding is spot on. The stopping and starting points on the lobes where they meet the rockers are 100% 90° lines. With all other cams I've been using it never start and stops as a straight line. Just had the HT1e run in, not a straight line. And after 20 minutes I stop the engine to check the cam. Full lift lobes will normally touch for 80%, with the last Piper cams, 100%. Not saying it is not good enough but I feel latest cams I had from Piper where really good. In a few days I will have my new profile (to beat the HT1e) and let you know how it looks.


    The good point of the cam is, it got the valves long open in relation to the duration. And this always work. Must say in most road engines I install BP270. Unless the car is light and I know it will be used with the extra power.

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    Re: Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

    The FR30 cam can give 150bhp with webers, a decent big valve head, 10 to 1 compression, decent exhaust etc

    HT1 or HT1e will never pull well from 2 to 2.5k unless you have full management even then they have way too much overlap and are really poor cams for low rpm power, they really need 3500rpm+ to perform best, below 3k is pretty rubbish even with a very well tuned engine, I am comparing this to the performance you can get with RL31, it can pull very smoothly from 2000 to 2500rpm with carbs and from near idle upwards with throttle bodies

    Dirk, I have never had a single cam lobe failure in any engine, most have hardly wear at all just a nice even polish around full lift, but I have seen at least a few of these BP285 cams worn quite badly on the inlet lobes, this cam and the std pinto cam are the only two I can think of that I have seen badly worn, but you may be correct about the material and grinding process being better today that it was years ago

    Yes lifting the valves open as high and long as possible vs the seat timing and using sensible overlap are very important, totally agree
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    Re: Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

    Kent GTS1

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    Re: Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

    I must agree with Caprimentle, the FR30 is not a good cam for drifting, I already forgot the basic question. Yes you can have good power with FR30 but for drifting you need something that rev's high with ease. The other cams will. But HT1e.... no that's not a cam for the road. People who use them and try to let you believe it is OK just don't know how much better it can be. I just found out it's even to peaky for Belgium rally. Or should I say, the Piper A8 was more suited.

    Maybe MK2magicdoc should first answer my question. How much road use should it be ?

    Yes, GTS 1 can't be wrong. But is in the faster range, I guess Piper 285 is slightly milder.

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    Re: Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

    Quote Originally Posted by onyd View Post
    HT1e.... no that's not a cam for the road. People who use them and try to let you believe it is OK just don't know how much better it can be. I just found out it's even to peaky for Belgium rally.
    Completely agree, most people are not at all aware how well an engine can perform with a properly spec'd cam with a sane amount of overlap, for rallying I would not use 80%+ of what the big cam companies have to offer, being completely honest most are rubbish, good at making peak figures but useless out of corners vs a well spec'd cam and much slower over all, in terms of overlap sometimes less = way more performance and faster stage times, a good example is mk2's with highly tuned S2000 engines, I can think of a few that make big power on paper but they are gutless out of corners, making lots of noise out of corners but not going anywhere, high overlap kills low rpm torque and acceleration


    Beware of getting greedy with selecting too much cam especially for a road engine, that 5 or 10 extra peak power the bigger cam might make can often make the engine slower! judge by acceleration and average torque + hp levels not by peak figures
    "Horsepower sells cars, torque wins races" - Enzo Ferrari

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    Re: Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

    What surprise me the most is, after 40 years of Pinto tuning there are still more silly cams than good cams. And people seems to buy them. I see the same here with VW Beetle and Porsche cams. I finally got a selection of super cams for these engines. From standard to fast road/rally. But it has cost me a lot of testing hours. Difficult to do the same with Pinto's because I hardly see Pinto engines compared to VW Beetle and Porsche engines.

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    Re: Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

    Could not agree any more Dirk, at least with profile mapping we do not have to test every single cam, what I believe is that the better the low lift flow the lower the overlap duration needs to be, this is why hemi chambers with big unshrouded valves work best with low overlap, I was surprised to see how large the valve sizes were in my dad's 3.0SC and was pleased to see how little overlap lift it had to be set up with, it is a nice torquey engine

    An engine with tiny shrouded valves and high cc would need a lot of overlap lift to get it to work well, where as the 911 engine with its very large valve sizes and almost completely unhindered low lift flow path due to the hemi chamber shape needs a minimum amount of overlap to scavenge the chambers effectively, the cam has got to suit the head flow and the cylinder cc vs the head flow, it is not rocket science yet the majority of cams available for the pinto and many other engines are poorly designed, it seems that if you have enough marketing anything can be sold, and keep slightly changing things over time with little improvements but still nowhere near optimum, rant over lol
    Last edited by RWD fords rule; 13-02-2013 at 23:38.
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    Re: Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

    And that's exactly what Porsche did wrong so many years ago and many tuners still do the same, believing Doctor Porsche knew it all. A small example, the 2 Ltr S road engines had 5 mm lift for intake at TDC and lobes 98° !!! In a Hemi. Not to complicated to build a better profile. Sure not if almost all Porsche tuners grind cams with even more lift a TDC !!!!! My 2 Ltr 911 S "drop in" profile push-up the torque by no less than 20 Nm all over the line. And nobody will be surprised if I say the S cam is THE cam at Porsche forums. Yes, it idles very rude. In the next page they will tell you you have to turn out your chokes from 32 to 36 mm and than you got yourself a rubbish engine. It's about the point I get them on the phone asking me to "setup" there engine !!!!!!

    And the same for the Pinto. Lets say, more than one cam can be used, I use Piper, You prefer Kent. Let us say, he can not do much wrong fitting a RL31 if he want real street power. But he must realize this cam start to use fuel. Again, how daily is de driver?
    Last edited by Dyno; 14-02-2013 at 00:12.

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    Re: Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

    The cams we are using only have 1mm inlet lift at tdc, Porsche definitely got it right with the 3.0 SC cams, 5mm inlet lift at tdc in one of these engines is utterly stupid let alone 5mm inlet lift in a 2.0 engine! that would perform like a Dead engine out of corners with no torque at all

    The cams I prefer are my own profiles sourced elsewhere not from Piper or Kent or any of the rest in the UK and then ground with proper LSA's
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    Re: Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

    Quote Originally Posted by RWD fords rule View Post
    The cams we are using only have 1mm inlet lift at tdc, Porsche definitely got it right with the 3.0 SC cams, 5mm inlet lift at tdc in one of these engines is utterly stupid let alone 5mm inlet lift in a 2.0 engine! that would perform like a Dead engine out of corners with no torque at all

    The cams I prefer are my own profiles sourced elsewhere not from Piper or Kent or any of the rest in the UK and then ground with proper LSA's
    Yes, 5 mm sounds really stupid but they did it. You can check and find the numbers back in the camshaft settings. First I thought it was a printing mistake. But after measuring the profile and I found out lobes where at 98° !!!!!!

    As a standard you can say, the later the Porsche (newer the model) the better the camshaft. It's normal Porsche was not using big valve lifts anymore when they changed from 2x Triple carb to single throttle plates in the later injection models.

    But those Porsche freaks really want to use these older cams. Because they have more degrees and "sound" very fast. I use a combination of in and outlet of the later Porsche cams, as usually with my road cams, grind at a different angle. And this work perfect in the older engines. And I do the same thing for the older 4 cylinders.

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    Re: Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

    If only cam designers could figure out that the better the low lift flow is vs the cylinder cc and chamber size the lower the overlap needed to scavenge and fill the chambers with fresh charge, also if only they would figure out that you can have too much overlap, that it kills low rpm power and acceleration very quickly as the overlap are increases above what is needed to make the engine perform well

    But the truth is almost all cam companies copy each other, especially so in the UK, no one is trying new ideas with old engines, their latest cams are just remakes of old profiles and using very tight LSA's with huge overlap

    However there is one good thing about all of this, if cam companies did produce cams that were right on the money then there would be no room for improvement, and oh boy there is massive room for improvement!
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    Re: Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

    Could not say it better but I had contact with a few cam builders myself and all told me the same story, "we build what people are asking for".

    One day I had contact with an English exhaust builder. I tested several MGB exhaust systems and soon found out they where all way to big. So I contacted the supplier and told him about the issue. The person was very kind and told me "do you think we don't know they are to big for max power?". He offered me to build an exhaust for me in any size of tube I wanted but if they could find a way to build the exhaust with a tube even bigger as they could right now they would do it instantly. AND THAT WAS GOING TO BE EXHAUST PEOPLE WANT TO BUY.

    So why should cam grinders put money in research if they are almost sure nobody will buy because they only want a popular number with very high degree numbers ?!?! They are selling anyway. And believe me, the camshafts at the end of the list (fastest cams) sell far the best. No matter they are up to the job or not.

    OK, we suggested some cams, up to MK2magicdoc to buy whatever he want. But he received good info here
    Last edited by Dyno; 15-02-2013 at 18:06.

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    Re: Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

    Hello Friends,

    Again, it is a very nice thread. Special thanks to Dirk and Jason. Not only because of a great explanation about the popular FR30 and RL31 but also for their very correct comments on the cam manufacturers.

    Fully agree but I would also like to add couple of words. These well known cam companies has a huge list of profiles in their catalogs and the worst thing is the technical specs of these profiles are literally incorrect. Anyone who can map a camshaft can prove this. Simple as that. It is all marketing, seems that they are offering such a variety and the customer falls in. After the initial purchase, people want to improve their engine and consider the next best camshaft ( at least, they think the next cam is better ) and buy that one. That is simply why that list there. It is the menu to choose from. I think, out of a long list, only 1/3 of that list can satisfy every need and that is usually more than enough. Also, it is worth looking in to X company's camshafts which is not the copy of the next popular company. They may be trying harder not to confuse people.

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    Re: Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

    RL21

    Simples

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    Re: Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

    In my opinion most of the modern Cams on the Market in the UK are just copies of older profiles by other Manufacturers and Tuners, just look at Kents GT range to see that. Not one Cam Company mentions anything about what the ideal compression ratio should be and little information about LSA, some don't even mention lift at TDC, is there any wonder most people are confused. In todays World it's all about Marketing and Sales, don't be put of that last Years Cam must be out of fashion!

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    Re: Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

    Quote Originally Posted by hawk1903 View Post
    Hello Friends,

    Again, it is a very nice thread. Special thanks to Dirk and Jason. Not only because of a great explanation about the popular FR30 and RL31 but also for their very correct comments on the cam manufacturers.

    Fully agree but I would also like to add couple of words. These well known cam companies has a huge list of profiles in their catalogs and the worst thing is the technical specs of these profiles are literally incorrect. Anyone who can map a camshaft can prove this. Simple as that. It is all marketing, seems that they are offering such a variety and the customer falls in. After the initial purchase, people want to improve their engine and consider the next best camshaft ( at least, they think the next cam is better ) and buy that one. That is simply why that list there. It is the menu to choose from. I think, out of a long list, only 1/3 of that list can satisfy every need and that is usually more than enough. Also, it is worth looking in to X company's camshafts which is not the copy of the next popular company. They may be trying harder not to confuse people.
    Totally correct.

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    Re: Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

    Yes totally agree Kerem, it is all about marketing and making more sales
    "Horsepower sells cars, torque wins races" - Enzo Ferrari

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    Re: Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

    Totally agree think i have fell into the next one on the list myself just building a engine that am going
    from a kent fr32 to a fr33 as i thought it would be the next move only time will tell i guess.

    How about those of you in the know putting a list together of popular cams and suggested specs what best suits ie comp ratio,s carb types single standard ,single side twin side,s what the effect of management has on cam. engine size 2.0 2.1 2.2 .

    would this be some thing that could be done and then made sticky good advice from you guys in the know is very valuable information.
    regards paul

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    Re: Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

    This would be the perfect world but it's not so easy. I had the same question for Beetle engines in the past. Did some typing but finally I came with an easier solution. I suggested 3 engines. A good all round with stock carb. A modified engine with small mods on the head and 2x IDF and a so called real fast road.

    And this could be done for the Pinto as well. You can make a full list of all the cams using the data on there website (as you can find for Beetles as well) and then you end up with a full list of b*llshit, just like on the manufacturers websites. Only way to do it right is testing all the cams or at least measure the data. Practical, not possible. But it is possible to give some good engine samples. I already did it 1 year ago. I improved a Pinto with standard carbs, fitted ERSON 134 (Piper 134) cam, fitted Ashley small bore, tested one by one. If you build yourself an engine like this, you already know the results before you even buy a single part.

    This could be done in different stages. Call it stage 1, 2 en 3. This would cover the needs of many individuals. Unfortunately, I already lost to much money in "finding the best off the shelve parts for a rally engine at a good price" so I'm out of money. But I'm willing to offer dyno testing if someone else is willing to put some money in the project. All you need is a good sound short block. Buy some heads, cams, carbs, and start testing. Try to find company's willing to offer parts like cams, heads, exhaust, etc... If they know they get more publicity it could be possible. I'm at least willing to offer the carb sets for testing. From standard up to whatever level you want to. After testing the parts go back to the company's. Data on the forum.

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    Re: Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

    Id be iclined to pop in a Caravan cam or Towing cam , this will give you the low down grunt you want coupled with a good midrange ....

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    Re: Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

    A very interesting thread with a lot of good info...

    Have a look at the Newman range of Pinto cams & let me know your thoughts.....good or bad.....I know that a number of top Pinto engine builders are using Newman in the UK....



    Cheers,
    David

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    Re: Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

    Newman might be a good company but with my limited knowledge ( in comparison to very knowledgeable friends on this forum ) , all I can say is their Pinto profiles just do NOT have enough lift to make the best out of a good Pinto engine. Even their Race profile have 12.49 mm lift. Something is wrong here. Are not Pintos much happier with bigger lifts ? As I mentioned earlier here, Noone can say anything just looking at the published duration and timing figures if they have not actually mapped the X profile with the matching parts ie. Correct valves, cam followers, seat depth etc.

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    Re: Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

    all I can say is their Pinto profiles just do NOT have enough lift to make the best out of a good Pinto engine. Even their Race profile have 12.49 mm lift. Something is wrong here
    depends on how you look at it, how you port the head will have a bearing on how much lift you need, if you talk to dave walker he will say a even a race pinto doesnt need more than 480 thou lift.

    the other thing to take into account is component life, more lift=more strain and things will wear faster, not to mention most engines are not built by pro's who get everything exactly right and are treated less than idealy when installed, if i were selling cams to joe bloggs on the street i would probably be slightly conservative, just in the same way when i build engines for other people i dont do anything risky, where as if it were my engine i might risk something

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    Re: Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

    Graham,

    You may well be right as also Dave Walker. But, I wonder how many people would be able to find a properly worked cylinder head off the shelf in the UK market to have their camshaft matched correctly anyway. Very unfortunately, there are so many bad examples in the market and in my opinion for the first time engine builder ( or even for some experienced people ) sourcing the properly prepared cylinder head is quite difficult. Surely, starting with the properly prepped/ported head is vitally important and would make the life easy as far as the cam choice goes. ( I am not an expert on the cylinder heads but I am reading and discussing a lot to learn more )
    I fully agree with you on the component life and a safer built but at the end of the day probably joe bloggs is not going to use the rally or race camshaft in an average build.

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    Re: Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

    but at the end of the day probably joe bloggs is not going to use the rally or race camshaft in an average build.
    unfortunately that very often is the case!

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    Re: Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

    Then it is really bad. I am not based in the UK so I really do not know what is going on on the street market as far as people's component choices and mixes. That is why my comment was not very specific. My and my friends bad experiences mainly based on the avearage cylinder heads which came from UK and having the poor cylinder head in the first place is not much helpful towards a succesful build in my opinion.

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    Re: Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

    sadly over here more people are hell bent on going seriously over the top on cam selection

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    Re: Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

    That is probably why someone developed the HT1E like HT1 was not enough. I imagine GTS4 completed its commercial life ))

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    Re: Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

    Quote Originally Posted by hawk1903 View Post
    That is probably why someone developed the HT1E like HT1 was not enough. I imagine GTS4 completed its commercial life ))

    Totally right about the Cylinders heads, Unfortunately, just like everywhere (not only UK), most heads are rubbish (as well as al lot of other stuff). Very difficult to find good working parts.

    For the HT1 and HT1e, small correction. The HT1e profile is LESS aggressive as the HT1. Still I've tested and found it not OK. But with some small correction it can be working. I asked a cam grinder to build a profile that will have more torque as the HT1e and still retain the power at max RPM. But not tested until now. (as a matter of facts, I had 2 new cams build).

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    Re: Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

    Yes getting decent heads is a real problem, metal removed only heads are never going to give the best performance possible, and even you stick with metal removed only heads they are very inconsistent from one company to another, some companies (no names) merely clean up the ports to make them shiny, machine it for digger valves bronze guides etc and leave a very sharp edge on the short side turn, almost sharp enough to cut your finger! the valve throat area has been bored out and the main port bored out and nothing blending the two together on the short side turn, really rubbish work, it is a lot safer to stick with injection heads as they are hard to make a mess out of as the shape is good already, much easier to get right than carb heads which are very tricky in he short turn area and takes a lot of time and effort to get a carb head up to a fairly well ported injection head, in fully modified form metal removed only the injection heads are far and away better

    Cnc heads are a good option, at least you know it will be the same every time and the flow is pretty good


    The information below is critical to producing a winning engine imho

    One thing about ALL pinto heads is that the inlet ports are much too large for a 2.0 or 2.1 full rally/race engine, the ports really need to have a brief CSA the equivalent of a 36mm to 37mm diameter hole MAXIMUM, with this brief high velocity area being close to the manifold face and the port steadily getting larger from this point on, this creates much needed velocity in the inlet port and adds a CHUNK of torque to the engine, adding at least 10lb/ft imho, lowering peak torque rpm and broadening the torque curve

    Big ports kill a lot of torque throughout the rev range, making a slower engine in competition, what you want is to have the minimum port CSA sized to suit the engine, a 2.4 bottom end can use 37 to 38mm minimum CSA but no more than this, a higher cc bottom end sucks harder and raises the port velocity, if we were to build a really good 1600 pinto the inlet port minimum CSA would have to be more like 35mm diameter to produce the best power and torque curves and have a winning engine

    Port velocity and shape is WAY more important than peak airflow figures


    When we are talking camshaft specification we have to match the valve lift to suit the head and the duration to suit the application, the required rev range, and the static compression ratio, etc

    Let us say that the inlet port max flows at 12mm lift and above this lift there is little if any more flow produced in the inlet port, why would we ever want to use more than 12mm lift?

    The reason why is that the valve only reaches maximum lift for an instant, what we need is to lift the valve further than the max flow lift point

    What we want is to have the cam lift the inlet vavle higher than the max flow lift to create adequate duration at and above max flow so that inlet port can maximum fill the cylinders

    A very critical point in the inlet timing is he point 75* ATDC, at this point the piston is now sucking hardest, ideally what we want is to have a cam that will lift the valve to its max flow point at 75* ATDC, so that the piston can do its work and suck in as much air and fuel as the head will flow

    The max lift will need to be around 10% more than the max flow lift point, 12mm / 0.9 = 13.33mm lift, we should regard this as the Required lift that should be used if Maximum performance is the goal

    If the port max flows at 14mm lift then we want to use a max lift that is 14 / 0.9 = 15.55mm lift


    Having a port that max flows at low lift is a good thing, it means that the maximum lift needed will be within reach with some off the shelf cams, however having a port max flow at very low lift such as 11mm lift means that there is a trade off in that the maximum inlet flow CFM will almost inevitably be much lower unless the head porter is really gifted and has developed a state of the art port, which in most cases is very unlikely, there is often an advange by having the port max flow at higher lift so long as the cam and valvetrain can support a further 10% more valve lift over the inlet port max flow lift, then the extra CFM at max lift can make more power and torque in the engine so long as valvetrain friction is kept low, (by using lightweight components lower spring pressures can be used closer to what a lower lifting can would be using)

    Let us take the CNC UK pinto big valve head as an example




    As you can see from this graph the inlet port is flowing pretty well at .500" lift but the flow keeps climbing upwards even .550" lift the port flow has not levelled off yet on the graph, not one person can say that a head with a flow graph like this cannot make better use out of a cam with at least .550" lift vs a cam with under .500" lift, a head with this flow graph would benefit from using .600" lift+ so long as the friction is kept low, if we used crazy high valve spring pressures the increased friction with more lift like this would be mostly cancelled out, friction is the enemy in any valvetrain, keep he components light yet strong and lower spring pressures can be used or you can use increased valve lift and valve acceleration with similar spring pressures and then make proper use out of increased valve lift

    Perhaps now you can see what I am getting at, the pinto head needs a lot more valve lift than some people think

    Unless you have a seriously well ported head that max flows at 11mm lift then a cam with 12 to 12.5mm lift is USELESS if you want to WIN races


    The vast majority of heads can benefit from using up to 13.5mm lift with normal rocker cams and up to 15.5mm lift with roller cams, the reason for not using more than 13.5mm true valve lift at the retainer with lash is that reliability would be reduced much beyond this point unless very light parts were used, which would mean using titanium inlet valves which are more at home in an engine with a high lift short timing roller cam


    At the moment we (Kerem and I) are working on a flat pad cam with 13.3mm true valve lift and short timing, it will be capable of beating any tarmac rally cam you can buy in the UK or anywhere else, we have tested a lot of different profiles already in competition and have decided there is a gap in the market for really well developed cams and other valvetrain components

    The other project is a roller cam with 15.3mm lift and also with short duration, we will be using 7mm valves and matching strong but lightweight components to make the whole system reliable for at least 8500rpm but I feel 8200rpm is more than enough for any pinto engine, the trouble with most roller valvetrain setups is that they either don't have enough lift and way too much duration or they have lots of lift and massive spring pressures that put too much pressure on all the the vaveltain parts, the key is to get this kind of lift with short timing and using very lightweight yet strong parts, then sensibly low spring pressures can be used which makes the whole system reliable at big rpm's long term and the reduced friction also adds more hp in the upper rpm range, roller valvetains cost a lot more expensive but they give maximum performance, for the serious competitor that wants to win by a sizeable margin


    One thing has to match another and another, get it all dialled in and you have a winning engine, get one thing wrong and it won't be nearly as fast as it could be

    Don't fall into the peak BHP trap, it is the Average torque and hp that move the car, the engine only reaches max power for an instant but "lives" in the most often used power band

    Regards
    Jason
    "Horsepower sells cars, torque wins races" - Enzo Ferrari

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    Re: Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

    Still waiting on your cams Jason.....

    If the quality of the kit is anything like your scrapers I'll be first in line......

    Shaun

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    Re: Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

    i agree to a point on the very high cam lift, but as jason has already said, it can be a law of diminishing returns, going from 500 thou lift to 550, is only a gain of 3cfm, and that extra flow is only there for a very brief moment, its rather like jasons comment on tuning for absolute peak hp, if you can get a bit more flow mid lift the engine will be better than gaining a fraction at massive lifts

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    Re: Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

    I agree to a point Graham, your example of a head flowing only 3cfm more at .550" lift vs .500" lift, if the flow graph looks like a peaky engine power curve with a lot less flow at .450" lift then we certainly need to be using over .500" lift with a head like that to make best use out of it, however if you example head was flowing say only 6cfm less at .450" lift then there would be little point in going beyond .500" lift, the valve lift has to match head and go a little beyond max flow when the port is giving very little increase in flow as the valve is further lifted
    What is also really important is reducing friction, then we can use extra lift without the usual problems associated with it
    "Horsepower sells cars, torque wins races" - Enzo Ferrari

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    Re: Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

    Quote Originally Posted by escortinadriver View Post
    Still waiting on your cams Jason.....

    If the quality of the kit is anything like your scrapers I'll be first in line......

    Shaun
    Thank you Shaun, they will be worth waiting for, it just takes a lot of time to get it all sorted out but the flat pad cam system is very near completion, roller is another story as I have yet to find a really good head porter that can produce the kind of heads we are after, once I do the project will be all good to go, in contact with a person from Finland will hopefully hear back from them soon
    "Horsepower sells cars, torque wins races" - Enzo Ferrari

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    Re: Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

    Sorry, answer was in wrong topic. I've delete and will write it at the correct place
    Last edited by Dyno; 24-03-2013 at 16:11.

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    Re: Pinto with twin 45s what is the best cam shaft

    Hi
    Many Great and important info above but in some areas to technical for me :/
    I was runing lately on RL31. After many rebuilds we Ended Up with great 191hp and 226Nm.
    45 dcoes, 36 chokes, 11,35 CR, big valves, fully machined head etc
    Used that engine for many years but in this set up Lasted only few events.
    It Was used, assembled too tight and with standard bottom. It started to get hot and eventually the cranks base broke and pushed the piston into the head. RIP.
    Need to build a new one. Want to do it the right way by calculating all. What cam would you advise to start with.
    Found so far such recommendations :
    - Kent cams RL31 (obviously)
    - Piper BP300
    - Newman cams Phase 4.5
    - ?
    I’m running a T9 gearbox (std, maybe cut in future) and 4,7 CWP. Carbs will stay the same.
    Tarmac Rally use only. Thanks
    Last edited by grzelu; 16-07-2018 at 22:22.

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