Someone needs this camshaft for their museum collection. :grin: Anyone have specs for it ? Winfield 7712-1 http://www.ebay.com/itm/Buick-Nailh...ies&hash=item1e7ebbed0f&vxp=mtr#ht_139wt_1328 Apparently it came out of Max's Old Yeller with a stroked 482 nailhead. This cam and stroking may explain some of "his speed secrets" from the Hot rod magazine found here http://www.ebay.com/itm/HOT-ROD-BUI...=Magazines&hash=item53fcc0fd5f#ht_2324wt_1091
That Camshaft belongs to me. I do not have exact specs for it but I can tell you that the lobe lift is around .300 and it has a bunch of duration. I never heard the engine running with this cam, when I bought the boat the block was freeze cracked. I sold the stroker rotating assembly about three weeks ago, still have the cam, lifters and the ported heads off the engine. Heads will be on Ebay next week.
I think I would of been tempted to get a block and rebuild that ole yeller engine and see what it would do. Pretty rare engine. How do the heads look compared to your porting?
I had ran the engine (without this camshaft) in my boat since 1999. When I built the engine I could not find anyone to reparkerize this camshaft as it had gotten rusty from water in the oil. Several years later I heard about Delta Cams in Washington, they repaired the cam and lifters for me. Back then I had Poston products grind me a solid camshaft for the engine, specs on it were .530/.530 242@.050 on 108LSA. The motor was a 401 bored .125 oversize with 4.125 stroker crankshaft. It had 11.75:1 compression and a B262 the engine ran great. Around mid July I was at the lake and the engine seized, locked up #7 piston. I sold all of the stroker stuff to finance a blown 364 project that I had been working on. I have a 471 Blower, Crager top and a mostly complete Isky 2" Gilmer drive. After mocking it up in the boat I discovered that it would not fit without notching the transom. It was more work then I wanted to get into at this time (I'm in the middle of building a house and a shop). I decided to put a 425 back into the boat. As far as the porting on the heads they look pretty nice, big rectangle exhaust ports. The short side radius has been laid down on both the intake and the exhaust. Nearly all of the guide boss has been removed from both the intake and exhaust. I'll post some pictures once I get them all cleaned up.
Thanks for the update, interesting reading. Cool that someone here has had a chance to look at the work that was done by the guys that played with these engines back in the day.
Delta emailed a cam analysis when we had the cams for our turbo Subaru project reground (along with head porting and larger valves). It is a cam card for all practical purposes. I would see if Ken has has one related to your cam under your work order. It would be interesting to see what Max thought was what! Cheryl
If you flowed the heads when you go to the flow bench this week you might have a added incentive when you sell them. Plus lots of people including me always wonderd what they did with the heads
Since I had some time today to kill figuring out what I was going to do with my pistons I put the Winfield Cam in my engine with the degree wheel and got some specs off it. They were kinda of interesting. Duration @ .050 241/252 Camshaft lift .292/.307 Intake open/close 10/51 Exhaust open/close 60/12 110 Lobe centerline. Looking at the camshaft I can see it has asymmetrical lobes. Since nobody bought it, and my 280HL Isky cam is ground 4 degrees off I am considering putting it back in my boat motor. Not sure about the heavy overlap (83 degrees) and the 10 degrees additional duration on the exhaust. Anybody have some experience with modern Nailhead cams? Is this some good vintage tech or not?
That's a big cam! I still have the old Isky 310 cam in my blue car, 0.291 lift, 244 duration on 108 lobe centers. Has a rough idle and great top-end power. Wild Bill is running a Crane 272 cam that is closer to your Max grind: 0.291/0.295 lift 238/248 duration Intake opens 10, closes 48 Exhaust opens 58, closes 10 111 deg lobe spacing. In general, Nailheads respond very well to the extra exhaust duration.
487nailhead, thanks for taking the time to do that. It is really cool to see what they were running back in the day. Really like to see what max was running with ole yeller. I read a article that was saying he had more low end coming out of the corners and didn't shift as much. Even with that size cam he had good low end. We know the cubic inch since you told us, now if we knew what the heads flowed it would really be interesting figuring out a HP number. Thanks fot the info:TU:
Considering the size of the 487 CI engine and head flow limitations, that is not really a big cam. I bet it was all done by 5000 rpm. Cheryl
Since no body bought this camshaft, and I always wanted to hear what it sounded like. I put it back into my boat. Just got it broken in today Here's a link to a video of the engine running: http://youtu.be/zuYjaawUsOc
I always liked to talk someone into standing behind the boat and checking the exhaust when I started mine up. Never got anyone to do it twice.
I think we are going to need to go with you on a Go-Pro type ride when you set it in the water. Cheryl
