Steel cams

Hamilton Cams

Hamilton Cams

ignorant
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Jun 28, 2007
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We just recieved our final beta test cam on our new steel line of cams for the 5.9. Since these cams are forged, they will only be available in our 232/252 .370" .370" profile for now. We will have some small variations of them available soon.

In all of our testing we have not run any bushings and have had no issues. I do suggest if you are going over 5k that you have them as a precaution.

I know some people charge as much as $1500 for the steel cams. WE were thinking of trying to order enough to get the price to around $899-$999


Any interest in a more affordable steel cam?

Zach
 
Cetane_addict said:
Have you had failures of your cast cams in comp. engines??
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I have not heard of one.

I have had two customers push cams into their block from running springs that are too stiff for the cam, poslihed the journals and they worked perfect in a shop truck.

I have had one cam seize in the block from a main bearing coming apart and sending trash to the cam seizing it and the breaking the front by the gear and then I had one customer seize the cam from filling his crankcase with fuel when his injectors failed.

In spite of the fact that our cams have had so little trouble, some customers still want a steel cam from all of the bad things they have heard about cast cams which were probably regrinds or others marine style cast cams. We have many customers spinning them over 6,000 with no issues. Our next order of cast cams will feature wider journals and a slightly longer cam that will provide more surface area for the journals. A little over .200" more surface area.


We sent 10 steel cams out yesterday to have final testing done. Currently we only have them in our 232/252 .370" .370" but we are adding a few new grinds in the coming weeks.

Zach
 
Hamilton Cams said:
I\Our next order of cast cams will feature wider journals and a slightly longer cam that will provide more surface area for the journals. A little over .200" more surface area. Zach
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So the cams that just sold out are not wider on the journals....
 
Which grind do you have? If it is the 188/220, those are about 5 weeks out still. You will most likely do best selling it and then buying a new one. These cams are in short supply and I can give you a few names of guys looking for cams today.

Zach
 
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Yea 188/220 grind, I would rather send it to you and swap if possible. motor is gonna be about 6 weeks out atleast and would lime thearger journals
 
Hold what you have now as I want to make sure you have a cam for your build. I don't want any manufacturer delays to slow your build

Zach
 
I'm curious about the hardness. The gold colored billet cams had the best hardness and the black colored billet cams had trouble with hardness. It didn't take much to wear through and they would destroy there self pretty quick. Also another question I have is on your cast cams I know you haven't had failure do to the cam breaking and your customers are turning them up the 6k, what kind of rpm are they turning down the track. I'm not trying to bash just learn something here before I buy a cam. I think it is really great what your doing for the diesel camshaft. You never stop trying to improve it!!! Thanks Zach.
 
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Typicall the cold colored or copper colored cams are 8620 or s slight variation therof. It is a low to no carbon allow of steel . To heat treat them you more or less have to carburize them to introduce carbon. The copper coated part ensures that only the lobes recieve the heat treating. The good side of this is that the lobes typically are slightly harder than the cams we use the down side is that the hardness depth is not what I like. Because of the higher hardness, these cams typically do not like the stock tappets which means you have to use billet tappets at an additional cost. This process makes a harder finish but the depth is usually pretty shallow, in the .040" to .060" depth unless they double process it. With this shallow of a hardness if there is any issues the lobes will wipe pretty fast(H2)


In comparisson, our cams have an alloy that has a higher carbon content which means they can be induction hardened. This usually makes a hardness 5-8 points less than the 8620 cams but still higher than our cast cams. This allows us to use OE CR tappets with them. The other good thing is that our hardness depth is usually around .120" which gives you a much better safety against wiping a lobe. Another good thing is that you can touch a lobe up if you ever want to slightly change the lobe without another heat treat. On 8620 cams you typically cannot regrind or touch up a cam.

We have had very good luck with these cams, I am not sure who you have used in the past on the black coated steel cams but I am sure ours are different.

Zach
 
I put four years of pulling on a copper/gold color cam with the stock 12v tappets and after I tore it apart this winter, it showed no signs of extreme wear on the cam or the tappets. I'm still curious about the rpm the cast cams will take. Are these guys running them up to 6k on the line and pulling the motor down to 4k or are they maintaining 5k or so going down the track? I want to try something diffrent for next year and just can't seem to make up my mind.
 
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