Technical Homemade Roller Cam for Flathead Six

I would likely find a distributor drive for an early Ford (bent 8) that bolts to the front of the cam and use the appropriate distributor gear for that with a 6 lobe breaker cam (unless you find a mag ).

For oil pump, I know it's OT as all get out, but I would find a late model engine that uses a direct drive oil pump (LS, Ford Triton, Hemi....) and adapt the balancer to drive it (pins, flats, keyway, ...) whatever fits in the space you have.

I figure if you can carve your own cylinder head, and grind your own cam, a custom front cover and oil pan should be a cake walk.

 

When I was going to school in East Texas, 82-84, there was a guy named Joe Gerik (sp) who raced an altered powered by a Ford inline six. Car was called Six Shooter, immagine that. Injected on alcohol, and had a dual overhead cam head he built himself, and did the cams and drive system also, I believe it was a Gilmer belt driving the cams. Sort of along your same lines, building a head and all. Butch/56sedandelivery

 

Drawn over mandrel,also to some seamless.
Recently I purchased a custom roller cam from bullit for a bbc ,they used a billit core and ground down the last journal off then pressed a cast end with a cast gear.
This allowed me to use a cast distributor gear with a billit core. They pinned it as well.
Something like this at each end of the cam would allow you to save your distributor gear in the center of the cam.
Or a stick of Dom and press everything on like Chrysler does.
Good stuff,keep posting your progress.
Gary

 

This is all way, way over my head.

 

Very interesting This is Hot Rodding..


K

.......................................
Taildragger&fenderless

 

I have a friend that went through one of Harvey's 3? day clinics. He is willing to talk.

 

Hadn't thought about the Ford dist idea, thanks.

Or even a BB Chrysler, then mount the external Chrysler oil pump on the other end, even comes with handy-dandy full flow oil filter mount...on second thought the oil filter would not be period correct for this build...(The newest readily identifiable part will be the '57 blower, the next newest is the '48 ford axle)

I looked at the direct drive oil pumps, didn't know such a thing existed...(the newest engine I'll work on is in my '86 Ford, even that now has an Edlebrock carb) These oil pumps look great for an application such as this, thin, convenient mounting holes, easy to make oil hose adapters. The other part of this build is the VR57 supercharger, this is the '57 T-bird type (Paxton with fins). They only made them for 2 years b/c they used engine oil and the acid in the oil, after running the engine, would eat away at the balls and races in the ball drive system. Ford replaced many of the blowers on the ~120 T-birds as warranty work within the first year. The guy at Paradise Wheels, who bought all the Paxton ball drive stuff from Paxton a few years back, recommended using an external oil delivery system with a separate sump, pump, and filter. I could fit two of these skinny pumps onto the crank, that would work, as long as I can make it look like 1950's race stuff.

Do they have seals on the shaft so one could mount them outside of the engine?
(probably not, but ya never know)

Thanks,
Kipp

 

I don't believe they have seals to like that.

If you want it to look vintage, Smokey built a system with an automatic transmission front pump as the pressure stage of an early dry sump (IIRC).

If you could find one that fit on the outside, you could still use one of the oil pumps for the engine oil.

Just out of curiosity, are you planning on full flow engine oil filtration?

 

Hey, Kipp;

1st, Thank you for sharing your program & instructions.

At the moment, it's a bit over my head, so some studying in in order. Maybe I didn't notice (& if it's there, would you point it point to me?), but would this work for a 1/4 speed cam? One of my fascinations. Since I literally have no idea of the amount of work this Q may entail for you, please don't take this wrong. How much would it take to tweak or add to your program to do the calcs for a 1/4 speed cam. I'm kinda guessing the answer is "a lot", but might you possibly find a need of that info for your Ply 6? .

Then we (well, you, 1st ) just gotta build the cam grinder. "Nother tech story! .

Marcus...

 

Marcus,

Yes, attached is a quick (5 minute) roughed out 1/4 spd cam. The program outputs the crankshaft duration for the left lobe only and it's for a 1/2 spd cam, so just multiply it by two.

There is no option to have the right side of the lobe match the left side and vice versa, so it would be more time consuming but completely doable. It wouldn't be too hard to add the extra code to add this feature and the feature for calculating 1/4 cam crankshaft duration.





Thanks for the input.

Kipp

 

Here's a pic of a prototype 1/3rd speed cam for a Pontiac V8.
The middle lobe is the injector for Bosch type injection.

 

What does one gain by slowing down the cam rotation? My first intuition suggests that it would make the ramp/acceleration issue worse, or am I not thinking straight this morning?

 

Kipp! This thread is so inspiring. I'm very interested in seeing what you come up with for your grinder design. If you don't know about it already, there is a Linux based machine control system that would fit this project perfectly. It's called EMC3, and you can find the work and community here: http://www.linuxcnc.org/

The control software is based on Ubuntu, so it should be pretty straight forward for you.

It's also nice to see another Penguin on the board! Linux has been my main desktop since '96...

 

You might do a search for Bus Schaller cams. He was an old time racing motorcycle mechanic specializing in Harley Davidson V twins.

He was a bug on reducing friction to a minimum. His theory was, less power wasted = more power to the rear wheel, at no cost or strain to the machinery.

One of his ideas was the 1/4 speed cam. He made special cams with 2 lobes, geared down to 1/4 engine speed.

Not only did this reduce friction but the lifters seemed to follow the cam easier with less spring pressure which of course reduced friction even farther.

Next he tried the same thing on a Chev V8. To get the cam to fit into the stock cam bearing holes he had to make the lobes small and oddly shaped, which required roller lifters which he made himself. This was in the late 50s, I am not sure if roller lifters were being made by the cam companies yet but they were not even thought of in Detroit.

 

Quote[" I am not sure if roller lifters were being made by the cam companies yet but they were not even thought of in Detroit"]Quote

Several engines from Detroit had roller lifters around 1903.
The modern needle bearing roller lifter as we know it was invented in 1937
by a guy at McGill Bearing Inc.

 

Kipp, you are one hard core dude.

I like your style though, DIY all the way down to the machine tools and software.

I've got a shop built CNC plasma tube notcher floating around in the back of my mind that I want to build eventually, but this project makes mine look like peewee stuff.

Love the way you just stated your goals and waded right into it.

That takes confidence (AKA large attachments made of naval brass ), and I wish you the best of luck.

I'll definitely be keeping my eye on this one.

 

Did you really mean to say 1/3rd speed cam? Try as I might I can"t wrap my head around that.

 

Yes, cam turns 1/3 of crank.
The engine has a normal carburetor plus injector ports in the block just below the deck.
Special long skirt pop up pistons.
Normal intake stroke.
Normal compression stroke.
Normal power stroke.
Normal exhaust stroke EXCEPT,
at the approach to top center of the normal exhaust stroke, the exhaust valve is still closed and at this time a shot of fuel is injected causing the fuel to ignite from compression and the hot exhaust gas still in the cylinder.
The result is a second power stroke.
Then a normal exhaust stroke.
Hence the name, 6 cycle engine.
We built several V8 Pontiacs and a couple Pontiac 4 bangers like that.
The V8's were used for small mining operations put on a large skid with air compressor, generator and shaft PTO. They were dropped into remote locations by helicopter.
The 4 bangers were used for racing but never did well because they were way to heavy.
Bruce Crower was working on a small 1 cylinder engine with the same setup several years after we developed ours.(mid 60's) He was amazed to find out he wasn't the first to try it. He wouldn't tell me much about his when I talked to him about it.

 

What I don't understand is. When the crank turns one revolution the cam turns 1/3rd of a revolution. When the crank turns two turns the cam has turned 2/3rds of a turn. I guess now all of the "Normal" events have taken place. Noe the crank turns another turn on the injector, without introducing more air? And that's another power stroke? Then it all goes back to the start? OK I read it again and that is what you said. Is this a really lean burn engine?

 

Sub'd........Killer stuff!

 

I don't think I ever heard the term "lean burn" when we were working with it.
As I recall, the amount of fuel injected on the 5th cycle was adjusted on the dyno.
I wasn't involved in the dyno testing. I did watch a couple of the pulls though.

 

All of this makes me think of the old Erson cam grinders that were not taken when Erson moved from here back East. They had been modified from Crank grinding machines. There were changeable patterns for every lobe design and each lobe was ground individually. I wonder if those machines are still sitting there.

 

I do remember working on some 9 cylinder twin cam engines that had 4 lobes per cam and ran at 1/8th speed. I think. Been a few years.

 

Them are some deep thinkers to come up with that....

 

You lost me at: "I started a thread...". lol

 

Yes, Kipp is really "thinking outside the block".

 

I believe there was something like that sold for model T engines. Tickeler? I think Multy Aldredge had one.

 

Wow, Pete, never imagined such a thing. What was the goal? Since they were used in mines was the goal to get more power per volume of air delivered / exhausted? I know moving air for an engine to breath becomes an issue relatively quickly when it has to be done via pipes.



All, here's some links I've recently found. For good info on Ford flathead and other cam designs from the teens through through present:
http://www.tildentechnologies.com/index.html

For in-depth modeling and measured data to include spring oscillations and the effects of hydraulic lifters on vlv train dynamics:
http://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/2299 (or search for "Modeling and verification of valve train dynamics in engines" by Husselman)

For good general cam and valve spring info:
http://www.profblairandassociates.com/RET_Articles.html

An old paper (1960), easy to read yet detailed enough to use for some cam software modeling:
<cite>www.camcoindex.com/Svcman/moonbook.pdf</cite>&#8206;

The more I read the more I am convinced I need to re-write my program so that one designs the vlv movement and the computer generates the appropriate cam lobe that will achieve the desired vlv movement.

I am currently researching how to calculate the surface stress on the cam lobe and how to calculate / analyze vlv train resonance behavior so the vlv train doesn't go into heavy oscillations and destroy itself.

Kipp

 

"Wow, Pete, never imagined such a thing. What was the goal? Since they were used in mines was the goal to get more power per volume of air delivered / exhausted? I know moving air for an engine to breath becomes an issue relatively quickly when it has to be done via pipes."

The goal was to get the required hp, in a SMALL package, at a low usable rpm for driving machinery.
In order to get that hp by normal methods you would have had a "race" engine that developed it's hp at too high an rpm to be useful without adding a heavy gear box.

 

I see the second link is to a thesis at the University of Stellenbosch, which is quite near to where I live.

Have you ever heard of the Pichard ballistic camshaft? A Google search turns up no mention, but Jan Norbye refers to it in his "The Complete Handbook of Automotive Power Trains" of 1981:

"About 1962 a French engineer, Jacques Pichard, began thinking about ways to obtain variable timing with a standard camshaft. The result was the ballistic camshaft, which he patented in 1968. The idea is so simple it's hard to believe it can work. It's a cam profile that produces a different reaction in the valve according to speed. At low speed, the cam works normally, i.e. the valve or valve lifter stays on the cam all the time. But as rpm increases, the valve is kicked off the cam. The higher the speed, the higher the lift and the longer the duration. Much development work went into producing controlled as opposed to random valve action throughout the range, and to perfect the damping system needed to prevent valve bounce on 're-entry' to the base circle."