Cam Profile Designer... part 1

If you have really read each one of my posts and halfway comprehended them, you should have a pretty good foundation about cam profiles. You should certainly have more knowledge than most people. Unfortunately you still do not know how to design a cam profile. I don't think I can teach you that. I don't think anyone can actually teach you that. Harvey Crane (of Crane Cams) had a class that he offered. He is the only one I know of that has done that.

There are many applications for designing a cam profile. We only think about engines and camshafts. Most applications are in the industrial world and have nothing to do with engines and camshafts. We never think about that world and they never think about our world (engines and camshafts). They are two totally different applications. The same math is used in both applications. That's why it is so hard to find information on specifically automotive cam profile designs. It's actually a small percentage of cam profile applications and not many people do it. Most of the information is focused on the math involved in designing an industrial cam profile (the shape). Again, the same math is used to design an automotive cam profile, the application doesn't matter. Any mathematician can design an industrial cam profile. He can not design an automotive cam lobe unless he has more knowledge than just the math. The engine camshaft profile has many unique rules and limitations that are not encountered in the industrial world. All that is stuff the mathematician will need to learn for the engine and camshaft world. That is the stuff that is hard to teach. Most mathematicians have never designed an automotive camshaft profile and never will, but they are all over the internet telling us how it should be done.

The computer software does the math part for you. You can teach someone how to use the software. The software does not know a good profile from a bad profile. The person using the software has to know that. That is hard to teach. It basically comes from years of experience.

You are an automotive cam profile designer once you have designed many cam profiles, had camshafts manufactured with your cam profile designs, run the camshaft in an actual engine, and made good power and reliability for the applications the profiles were designed for. One last thing, someone needs to pay you for your cam profile designs. In reality, there are very few of us.