$200 paperweights??

[wataboy]

Hi guys,

Picked these up off Ebay with plans on using them in my W2 to V2 head swap I'm doing later.(lots 'o good stuff on here about that btw) When they arrived I noticed the tip of both opener lobes on each cam had one edge ground off.
Is this the way they were made or did someone do this on purpose? And if they did do it on purpose could they still be used?

The ad read "NOS cams were fitted to 750 heads, they but did not work out. They were removed. The camshafts have never been installed in a running engine. The Ducati 06090 cams are the the same grind as the Vee Two 210 cams."

So what sayeth the B&B? Should I have put my money on the bobbed-tailed nag instead of the 'Bay?

Thanks,

[thorn14]

I was watching those too! I got cold feet thinking of how to get the extra lift required to run them versus finding other cams.

Interesting seeing that, as I don't remember any pictures showing that. No idea on whether they are usable.

[Duck-Stew]

I haven't seen that before on aftermarket camshafts but I suspect that it is there to provide room rocker movement during valve adjustment.  Perhaps 'brad black' could provide insight....

[Rudemouthsky]

Hahaha, those were on my watch list too...didn't wanna deal with machining relief pockets in my JE Pistons and other BS associated with those. I could've sniped em for $160 at one point.

[Speeddog]

+1 on getting Brad's feedback.

They look to be made that way to me, or that grind job was a pro.

I'd run 'em like that, IMO the nose doesn't work real hard.

[koko64]

Thanks guys for the explanation. Makes sense with such a tall lobe.

[thorn14]

According to brad's cam spec table, would it have to do with the intakes 13.1 (mm?) lift versus every other bike only having 11.8 max? Ground down for clearance?

[koko64]

The lobe isnt ground down, so same lift but a bit taken off the edge so you can slide the rockers off and on during valve adjustments as the guys have said. So its a mod to help with servicing.

[Speeddog]

Those cams will work the rockers, shims, and half rings hard.

Lots of lift and short duration means they'll be flinging the valves open and closed quickly.

[Rudemouthsky]

Those cams will work the rockers, shims, and half rings hard.

Lots of lift and short duration means they'll be flinging the valves open and closed quickly.

They restrict top end...piston clearance is a concern..MBP collets are probably a must... what's the benefit to running these cams anyway? Especially when I.E and ST2 cams supposedly improve performance "everywhere"? Everything I learn about these tells me to steer clear.

[koko64]

Grunt cams. Wonder how they'd go in a 750 if the piston to valve clearance was dealt with? Or an E750/900?

[koko64]

Thinking about it, if for some reason you wanted to maintain stock low comp for some reason, they could liven up the bottom end and mid range torque without having to resort to hi comp pistons. They could be handy in an adventure type bike where low end grunt might be more important as might the availability of gas. Maybe

Be interested to hear what Brad thinks about the cams for sure.

[koko64]

I take it that, "Did not work out", means they couldn't or didn't want to spend anymore to overcome the valve to piston clearance issues or need for longer valves, etc?
Brad covers these issues in his bikeboy.org site on subject "900 with Vee Two cams".

[brad black]

i've seen a few sets of those cams and never seen that that i can recall.  i do have one somewhere.

it's only the nose, where in reality the closing lobe is doing the work to start closing the valve, so i don't think it's a big deal.

these cams need a lot of piston to valve clearance due to the opening rate.  you'd need to do a lot of machining to a 750 piston to get enough i'd think.  the inlet c/l spec is 105 and lobe separation is 107.5, so you could retard them a couple of degrees to hep that out.

not sure about how hard they are on the valve train.  the low rpm nature might help there.

they have very short exh duration, so maybe that hurts their ability to make power.  i actually don't get this cam at all.  very odd specs.  it'd be interesting to put the opening grind onto a normal exh grind cam.  the other side of that is that all the later, good cams are around 260 degrees anyway: 800, 1000ds.

the engine i put them in didn't really peak any earlier tho, and it made quite a difference.  it made more power under 8,000 rpm, altho it'll feel pretty flat once past 7,500.  but that bike still had a std airbox lid.  maybe some minor porting?  and again the cam timing was set and not moved.  it did go nicely.  i think it got a gia.co.moto/dp outrageous comp 944 kit later in life, and man did it ping then.

but, if anyone has dyno charts to show the improvement 900ssie or st2 cams make in the long manifold engines i'd like to see them.  as far as i can tell, there's never really been any substantiation of the allegations for those cams.

[Rudemouthsky]

This is the response I received from that seller when I inquired about those cams;

"The valve stems on the 750 a just a hair too short to keep continuous contact with the cam. My local shop, Chesire's in Portland, OR, tried very hard to make them work, but but couldn't get them to go without throwing large amounts of money down the road. There are also some other issues as well"