Engine Stuff You Should Know - How To Identify Mystery Cams The Quick And Easy Way Measuring Lift 

The first time.... everyone who started on their own with a manual and no mentor forgets how long that first time took. The first time I popped out a valve must have taken me half a day because I was nervous about breaking something. Same with installing break springs. Do it a half dozen times, learn a couple little tricks, get it done in no time at all, and you feel like a god.

Anyone who belittles a beginner, is an ass. You, "uncle tony's garage" and I, share the desire to pay forward our accumulated knowledge to the lesser learned. It astounds me how many want to say crap to the starter's. We, ALL OF US knew nothing at one point. Thank you "Uncle tony's garage"!!! Edit (I don't have NEAR the experience that you do with serious 1/4 mile drag cars, nitromethane, ect. But rather a very long list of budget builds on small and big block Chevys. That continues to this day. So many are hell bent on "everything perfect, factory specifications" type of building. Not everyone can afford this. One can have a lot of fun, gain a great amount of knowledge, by just doing the best you can, with a very measly Budget. Patience is the main key. Thanks again UTG, you are one of the few!!!)

Send Josh my congratulations, at least for getting this far. Thinking about doing it is a lot easier than turning wrenches and actually doing it.

Well hell! The next time I Need this job done I'll call ol' 18 minute hot dog boy and then I'll stand there with a stopwatch!

Its guys like him that want to learn it without excuses that make you want to pass it on. Hat's off to Josh for this.......... and on a side note.... I was wondering if he would toss those headers after all that, because I sure would've.... lol

I put a dark green DC purple shaft in a 318 recently, it sounds fantastic and goes really hard. We found others with colours only DC cams Red is .557 Orange is .590 and that's all we found

Very impressed with the kid! Remember this word, perseverance. There is no greater power. Use it & you will succeed.

I had a guy give me a purple shaft cam years ago and he didn't know anything about it so with this info now I'll be able to. Thank you for putting out the info

Bloody good uncle tony…!!!! The other handy thing to know for the viewers is tools like digital vernier calipers and Dial gauges with magnetic base they’ve come right down in price and there’s plenty of $30 and $50 jobs on eBay that’s good enough for the home gamer….

My first transmission R&R was when I was about 18. Ford Elite up on blocks and I took it out by hand. Going back in, same thing. Except this time, it slid off the dowel pins and torque converter studs while I was holding the tail shaft up with my foot and reaching for bell housing bolts. The Ford bell housing has a complete bowl shape, no cutout for an inspection cover. That's an important part of the story because the bottom of the bell housing landed on my chin. The torque converter slid forward and started draining itself on my face. Now I'm trapped! I have no idea how I did it, but I got the torque converter back into place, lifted the transmission back up, somehow got the torque converter studs lined back up with the holes in the flexplate, (thanks Ford for that genius idea) and back on the dowel pins of the motor, and got some bolts started. I wear the scar on my chin to this day and I'm 61. I went on to become an owner operator of an automatic transmission repair shop. Never worked on my back again. You couldn't have picked a better transmission to start with for your young friend than those old torqueflite 727s and 904s. Easiest trans of all.

I still can’t believe that I got to shake hands with the legend that shares all this amazing information with us :) 😊😊😊 Love u brother man ❤❤❤ UTG in my opinion. Is my favorite car RU-vidr. Period.

Love seeing a young-un wrenching on vintage steel.

Funny enough, just bought a cam for my MEL engine to replace the original (early 1958). The one I bought is a later “improved” cam, and I was wondering how I’d measure it up to the original. What luck this was posted today! Thank you, Uncle Tony!

Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, before the internet, things I was able to dig up on the LA engines, specifically the 318, I found the recommendations for the Mopar "purple shaft". But I was led to believe that was only one cam. But nooooo. There were several. There was also the .474" lift and .484" lift cams, which were also "purple shafts", and the one I wanted, I found out, was the .450" lift, 268* purple shaft. The internet sure makes things so much easier these days. Something else I discovered, cam lift vs. displacement. The same cam in a 318 gave far different performance from using it in a 340. The 273 "Commando"/"Charger" engines had a hot cam, you'd have thought it was huge, but only .425" lift or so. Comparable cam in a 340 would probably be the .474" lift cam to that little 273's cam. I'd be interested in a good discussion of lift vs. displacement.

At my Dad's I have a pile of 60+ SBC/BBC camshafts. Most are in the right boxes and identifiable but some of them I have no idea without degreeing them in a block so I'm glad you put this video together. It will be handy.

I’m with you Russell Mooney. I’ll go further to say the person that can do it so fast stuffed with hot dogs probably spends the time savings pulling the transmission fixing the crap they twisted off and broke being hasty. So great job Josh!!

It's great you are helping to preserve our hobby showing people how to work on there hot rod .

For a novice who hasn't been wrenching all their life , getting that transmission out is an achievement . I been turning wrenches for decades and I can tell you that job would have seen more than a couple tools test flighted . Great info on demystifying random cams for those that have not had that special treat . Yeah , the good ole days were not all that great , but , everything is NOT online . We traded local gurus for internet forums , social media , and , a parts counter person who needs your year make and model just to sell you 10' of 5/8" heater hose .

You answered my question at the end about the hydraulic lifter not being as "stiff" as the solid, used to have to adjust my solid lifter cam, a GM phase 2 that was a 512 lift at .28 intake and .30 exhaust, if I remember correctly. Again good content and infro uncle Tony.

AMAN of the header delete. worst mistake i made on my ford 390. Regular manifolds are plenty. I never noticed the difference in power with headers.

So, here’s another possibility… get a good pair of heavy, accurate vee-blocks, set the cam journals in the vees, and use a dial indicator on a mag base to trace the cam profile as you rotate the cam. Might save a bit of time over sneaking the cam in and out of the block. Just a thought.

We used to call it a Hemi grind. I got them wholesale for $36

Well done video! Thank you so much. I recently inherited a late 60's SBC and was hunting how to identify the camshaft. This makes it easy to know what I have. PERFECT level of technical speak; not over our heads but also assuming that we know the basics. You know your audience!

That was an excellent tutorial, Uncle Tony. I used the in-engine method to find out what cam I had. It is too bad that a lot of cam companies don't make their cam cards available. It would make life easier. I should have paid more attention in math class.

That's a decent cam I ran it a few times back in the day. Once in a 318 and once in a 340 a good all around cam that was easy to drive on the street without a lot of other mods.

That was awesome. I really like the grass roots simple but effective technique to get the solid numbers. Great work.

I started working in a shop that did major engine work at 14. My boss took the time to be a meantor. I never took that for granted, and have tried to pass on the favor when I could. You remind me so much of him. I am now 57, and had the chance to thank him and spend time w him after he got dimentia. Keep it up!

In what universe does a brand new dad have three minutes to himself?

I pulled a sbm 727 and replaced it with a 904 in the dead of winter while having the flue. It took me the better part of 2 days.

Ha! I was just measuring mystery Alfa Romeo v6 cams yesterday. made a bench jig to do it with a dial indicator and a degree wheel to figure out LSA. I found a couple sets that are not in the books.

My swap meet mystery cam was a new Manley Mauler BB mopar cam from the '60s that has .447 intake lift.

Great knowledge sharing uncle Tony and Always Love that you share more n more Mopar tricks and Experience. Thank you .

Everyone always thinks a job will take 10 minutes. There's always unforseen things that happen or come up that makes it take much much longer.

My diesel teacher had a big sign in shop "slow down to speed up" He did an awesome job!

Youre a good dude uncle Tony!

Awesome video thank you

Digging the Satellite a lot. Just a small thing- get a drop down indicator that either fits into the valley nicely or has a longer probe so that the probe's axis is in line with the 'Z' axis (up and down) of the lifter. Don't have it on an angle different than that of the lifter, for an accurate measurement. I know why Tony's indicator is set up that way, and I know he'd usally do it a little differently. Just saying, for the casual observer, that yes the error introduced is minor in the application here but you don't need it at all.

This is great stuff. You're a good teacher. From Ohio

Thank you, sir, very helpful.

He did really well. Well done

Amen Tony I wish the kid the best of luck!

Good info uncle T

Helpful video

Degree wheel and the dial indicator will really give you the most accurate information, duration, lift,& overlap, then all that on a graph, find the power!!!!!

Glad you were there to teach the art of American V-8s.

HOWdy U-T-G, the BUMP & GRIND of CAMSHAFTS Thanks COOP ...

Can you do a video on how to split atoms with an expensive dial indicator?

King content. :)

Wow, what a wimp, I could've had that trans out in three months with nothing more than 100,000 dollars worth of Snap On tools, a lift and three helpers!

Hang in there, Josh. Don’t pay attention to those critics.

I love your videos man, I wish I could come apprentice you and learn your old-school hotrod tricks. I've been tinkering with stuff since I was a kid as a therapy and haven't stopped since in the past 13yrs. Great videos and information. Keep it up!

Fantastic

( street hemi ) purple shaft 474 small block . I believe that grind , was revised in 1984 , with change to duration ramp

Those Purple Stripe cams were very good IMHO. Ran one in my 383 many moons ago.

Thank you for the good information! I have a 1969 351W someone built several years ago. I’m now trying to determine how it was built and what’s the cam size. So your video is perfect! Question: my hydraulic lifters are not oil primed, I assume that’s ok to get a measurement because the lifter spring most likely won’t compress while measuring the height like you did. Correct? Hope my question isn’t confusing

that was some good teaching right there but without the internet it would be a lot of waiting for catalouges to arrive lol

The simplist way to check overall lobe height is put the cam in a lathe between centers. This of course is provided you have access to a lathe 🙄 this will also allow you to check the cam bearing run out. Cam are found between centers. In the old days many moons ago the cam lobes were ground using a master cam. Today it's all CNC And if you are going to use dial indicators. They give the most accurate reading if the axis of the indicator is 90°s to the diameter or surface being checked. And instead of using a mag base make up a set of posts that screw into the various tapped holes.

Uncle Tony I get so angry when guys out there talk shit about a guy trying to learn his way around a car. Instead of putting him down and making his plight worse, help the guy out. We all love cars here because we are watching this video. Help grow our love of cars with encouragement to these young men. Rant over

Very Important. I have one Lunati Bracket Master solid that has the grind stamped, but they dropped it from the catalog, measuring is the only way.

I’m a car Detailer retired but there were some cars through them they took too long but also I’m a little bit more about mechanics do some jobs or that way so I understand your friend and you just got a power through it so you may not like them doing the job

Thanks Tony this was great. How can you tell what engine manufacturer a cam goes with? I mean a mopar versus ford versus GM etc etc etc. appreciate it.

"I could of done that job in 18 minutes with a mouth full of hot dogs."Good fer you!🤣🤣🤣🤣

So awesome you are mentoring these young guys. Very cool to see several simultaneous projects in the shop. Bravo Uncle Tony! One thing though, at 10:12 your dial indicator is not dead nuts parallel to the lifter bore axis, that causes inaccuracies, and here a few thousands could make a difference. If you're off-axis by 8 degrees (which you appear to be, at minimum), that will shorten your measurement 1%. 11 degrees off and you come up 2% short. 15 degrees is 3.4% short, 20 degrees is 6% short. Non-linear, it adds up quickly. Percent error is (1-cosine (angle)). Trigonometry rules, as does UTG!

If you don’t know the manufacturer,measure an exhaust lobe too, helps narrow down the search because a lot of manufacturers have different exhaust and intake lifts.

I used to think nothing of yanking transmissions, vehicle on jackstands, transmission on my chest, in many cases. Got pretty good at it actually, if I don't say so. Today, it's one of my least favorite jobs, lol. Camshafts should be clearly marked in a way it doesn't need to be removed (just remove the chain sprocket) to know the number. I haven't ever found a part number on one.

What’s the largest cam duration you can put in a stock Chrysler 383?

. . . . And then there is the Degrees to consider FUN STUFF Uncle Tony, we did it with paper, pencils, & sometimes a Cam degree tool, but the notch or keyway work as good base line zeros :) 😎🏁🇺🇸🎸

I beleive that you were measuring the lift of an intake lobe (at least that is what you said at 9.25), but you looked up exhaust values in the data sheet. However, I still understand how to do it.

What if you held the cam against a pane of glass and measured up to the "heel" or base circle, then measure to the "toe" or cam top, subtract the difference and you have your lift ??

Cam IDs and specs are still the most closely guarded secrets of performance builders, just like in the prehistoric days before the internet turned everyone into a professional. They don't want anyone copying their cams that they worked and tested for so long, to find the one that works best. When I get a cam for a build, I always get the build specs from the grinder, and give it to the purchaser. I grind any numbers off of them, an just put my code on it, where I know where it is. They will have to mic it out if anyone gets it that isn't the original purchaser.

Hey Uncle Tony I got a pile of messed up old Dodge trucks from like 65 69 73 all short wheel base and the odd long box but you know having a mentor helping in fellows like what you're doing for this young fell after you'll oh I can't remember what it's called down sorry much love and respect

2 seconds into the video and I hope this will help me. Bought a 65 Mustang that runs like a bat out of hell and has some suspicious parts. The 9 quart oil pan, and $500 harmonic balancer scream to me stroker. The block is a 302 out of a 71 Torino but it has the 65 heads from a 289 which are high compression with that combination. The cams in mystery and and hopefully this video will help me figure out what I've got. You can check out my channel to hear the car idling and see it testing the traction LOL

Melling 1334 is a great cam for the magnum. With my rockers I'm measuring.453

In the 80s I had a flat cam on a 318 aspen went to the machine shop they gave me a cam worked perfect no break in no special oil and minimal skill and knowledge on my part car ran great after that . Now I’m more confused the more I have learned 30 years later

I had to do this on a pontiac 400. Had some oddball solid lifter cam in it. It was a GM grind for sure but the closest I could find was the ram air IV cam and that wasn't exactly close either. Nothing in some old crane and comp books either. It was suggested it was either a prototype cam from GM or a regrind. Thing sounded like it was ready to party, very rowdy bump stick. The one I replaced it with even though it was a roller, sounds tamer despite more duration and lift... go figure.

Even with iron exh that should be a fun cruiser. Quieter too. If that's what he wants fine. His car. His choices

This is awesome knowledge brother. And Josh is doing a incredible 👏 it's alot of work.

Comment, no hate. It may be the 0.484 lift cam. You had a bit of excessive angle on the dial plunger to the lifter bore centerline. Ive been bit by this verifying a cam card. Enjoy your tubes.

I like putting the exhaust and rocker covers back. I’m just that way.

❤❤❤❤work is in the air and in the blood ❤❤❤❤

I feel his pain, I only get a couple hours a few nights a week. So to pull an engine it might take a week or 2.

Hey Uncle Tony, can you use a used cam with new lifters? Or do you have to have the old lifters that were broken into that cam?

Uncle Tony did you ever drink beer with Roy Demeo?

Valuable wisdom UT. Thanks man. Old guys rule. 😎👍

That has got to be some of the most useful info you have ever passed along.

I have a 383 that I’m collecting parts for and if Josh wants to move the valve covers he’s taking off his satellite, I’ll buy them

Congratulations Josh! That's not an easy job, but removing and reinstalling 727's gets easier every time you do it. You first reinstall is gonna be a bitch.

really great stuff, tony. thanks!

Headers are a pain the A*s on B Bodys. I owned a 1969 Superbee and fortunately for me had a A 833 4 speed not a torqueflight. A torqueflight being fatter would be even harder to fit.

Good tip. Thanks Tony.

👍

I'm having a hard time putting on this timing belt on this V6 Honda 3.0. I got the belt on correctly spun the crank one time and then had somebody stop by. So I took a break and then went back to work on it after they left. I saw that the marks on both cam sprockets were pointing down because I only rotated the crank once but didn't realize it at the time because my mother had just died and I'm still not thinking clearly. So I took the bill of the rear cam sprocket and rotated the cam clockwise I think and it's spun on me because I used a ratchet instead of a wrench. I wasn't thinking clearly. So then I reversed the ratchet flipped it back and called it a day. So then thinking about it overnight I went out and lined up the sprockets put the belt on and rotated it one more time on the crank which put all the pointers lined up. Question is if the rear cam is out say one revolution in either direction would I still be able to rotate the engine with the belt on? Thanks in advance

"... I could of done that job in 18 minutes with a mouth full of hot dogs"😳😳 🤣🤣🤣🤷🏻‍♂️🤣🤣🤣

A little better camera focus on the INTAKE LIFT part of the chart would have helped because the EXHAUST LIFT was the same number. (Confusing but I got it!).... 😕

How do you know what cam company to reference with?

👍👍👍

Great tip as usual Tony 😎

Question.... I've installed and successfully broken in several flat tappet cams, both solid and hydraulic without using light springs for the break in. Today it seems like many are doing this and I'm wondering if it's due to all the flat tappet problems in the last few years. I have a Howards solid flat tappet circle track cam and Howards lifters I'm ready to install and would of course like to not do all the extra work of break in springs... Not a huge cam, only .530 lift/240° duration and springs are 330 pounds per inch What say you?

How do you know if hyd or Sld?

💕💕💕💕