WD45 Cam revisited

I've been going back and forth again about doing something to this cam going into the new engine I'm building for the WD45. I spoke with the people at Bullet Cams. Told them what I was doing with it and here's what they are saying to do to cam. I'm not sure what the stock specs are or the stock specs for a 175. What do y'all think?
TR 232/232-F8
Duration @ .050 = 194/194
Lobe lift = .262/.262
Valve lift with 1.6 = .432/.432

Stock WD-45 ( WC thru 170)grind has .260" lift at the cam lobe, so there's really no gain/change here whatsoever at .262".   A 175 grind has .315"lift at the cam lobe and .460" actual valve lift with stock 1.488" rocker arms. Duration on a stock WD-45 camshaft is 210 degrees intake and 220 degrees exhaust. A 175 grind is 230/230 duration.   194/194 degrees is less valve open time?? Mr. Bullet would have to explain that one to me. Might be because of the .050" number ?? might not be comparing apples to apples on that.

Well, after comparing the numbers I don't know. It looks to me like the numbers could be jumped somewhat. I'd call someone who builds pulling cams and see what they say.

A "pulling" camshaft isn't what I would want for a tractor that is to be used on the Farm. Fuel economy, drivability, and overall good performance would be very important. A real "pulling" camshaft may give you great high RPM performance, but when operating the tractor at 1400 RPM, it may run poorly and suffer from high fuel use. That grind they have proposed looks to me like a stock grind. It's too coincidental the lobe lift is identical to stock.

Berry Cam in Lester Prairie, Minnesota used to grind cams to 175 specs. 25 yrs ago I gave them a new 175 cam for a pattern to copy.

The WD45's had a timing gear/camshaft change in 1954 the first WD45's had a three bolt mounted timing gear and latter on they used a keyed gear.

Blake, my opinion which isn't even worth 2 cents!

You keep posting about how you've spent $3k on this rebuild so far and aren't even done yet. There's a reason for that. You're thinking about things that ought not be thought about.
Why do you think that the WD45 cam designers were such knuckle heads? They designed a good cam for farm use. If you were seriously pulling that's totally different, but you're not.

Don't go messing with advancing the cam gear. Just finish building yourself a good farm tractor. You may have to retard back to 25 degrees for the D17 pistons, but don't go messing with the cam unless you just really want to play and make a game out of this.

I'm all for playing and wanting more power. I get that, Shoot, I put 8.25 pistons in, but like you've been told before, it comes with a price. Dollars and some reliability.

Trust the original engineers and decide when some things on that tractor are "good enough" unless you are really just wanting to play and don't mind spending a lot of extra money.

With so much money in the project and alot of my parts being hard to find NOS I'm having a hard time with putting back in a 60yr old cam with tons and tons of hours on it. I have a NOS fork lever for the governor on its way right now that was 80 bucks lol. From what I was told after calling dealer after dealer I got the last new one available in the US from a dealer.

DSeries4 wrote: 79fordblake wrote: With so much money in the project and alot of my parts being hard to find NOS I'm having a hard time with putting back in a 60yr old cam with tons and tons of hours on it. I have a NOS fork lever for the governor on its way right now that was 80 bucks lol. From what I was told after calling dealer after dealer I got the last new one available in the US from a dealer. If your 60 year old cam is still in good shape, why would you change it just because of its age???  Get it checked out, and if it's not worn throw it back in the engine and run it.  I have had several of my engines rebuilt and none of them ever had problems with the cam shaft.  Just worn cam bearings.  I also agree with Dave.  The AC engineers were not dummies.  They designed a good cam for a variety of uses.  Don't screw it up just because you don't think it's good enough. Rebuilt a few here and the cam was never an issue. New cam bearings and buttoned it up. Your money, spend it how you like.

I'm definitely not trying to be derogatory, but, sometimes, changing perfectly good parts is just wasting money.

Am example is when I asked my (locally very well respected) machinist about line boring a 201 block, his reply was that these engines ran well for years and years with shimmed main bearings. Why would you want to waste money on something that has already been proven to work?

I see exactly where you're coming from Blake wanting everything to be perfect and have a great tractor. Some thing like the governor fork could be welded up and ground back down. I don't know exactly how high to make it, but bet some guys on here would.

Technology has changed a lot since 1950, but this technology reason hasn't. There's no computer, sensors, injectors or all kinds of other things that I don't know about. Even if you're cam is a little wore, you're going to gain .5 or 1 HP. Flywheel, you'll be at 45 instead of 44. If that's worth it to you, great. I decided I'd spent enough. I'd rather spend that money on getting the block decked or something to make sure it's perfect.

I can't remember if you're putting in a D17 governor spring or not. I'm still not convinced that at WD45 RPM's the 175 cam will help much. Cam's are designed for an RPM range, and I get the high RPM 175 was part of the change. The only way to know is to install a stock cam, run on a dyno, swap cams and run again on the same dyno. I doubt anyone has ever done that. It WOULD be interesting.

(Should I say it?)
I bet you'd get more bang, working on the manifold a little like wi50 was talking about. I stared at mine a little the other day and wasn't smart enough to get just what he was talking about.

I don't mean to be insulting or anything, but that's just my opinion. If you go against it, we can still be forum friends

I'm not impressed at all with the help from Bullet Cams. I guess I will stay with stock cam it would save some money. Yes I do have a brand new D17 spring still in Agco bag.
I'm not upset with anybody on this forum Dave lol.

Edited by 79fordblake - 04 Oct 2016 at 7:25am

Allis dave wrote: (Should I say it?) I bet you'd get more bang, working on the manifold a little like wi50 was talking about.

The manifold and head. My G149 valve seat inserts had a massive ledge on the floor of the runners that needed to be cleaned up when my head was ported. Not that I can take advantage of that porting with my stock setup but it was a free modification and possibly free power.