I am probably not the best person to talk to about cams as I know just about enough to be stupid, lol. In fact, I will admit that many years ago I thought it was a good idea to run a Clifford (Erson I suppose) cam at 290 duration and 495 lift on the street in a 235 chevy, silly boy. After I bent the intake valves hitting the pistons, then clearancing the stock pistons so that would not happen again, got the motor running, I learned just how awful the wrong cam grind can make a motor run, lol. I still have that cam to remind me of that fiasco. That being said, i have owned my 57 for 36 years and ran chet herbert regrinds in my 235 and 261 motors for years, and they were all like 278-284 duration and to tell the truth, i loved the cammed up sound. So, herbert does not mess with the odd stuff any more, Howard's does not want to mess with anything other then what they have in their catalogue, Clifford is just too expensive, so I called Schneider. Jerry was very cool to deal with and ground me two cams for the 261 that took into consideration the weight of my 57 chevy, about 3500 lbs, the fact that I was running no accessories, manual trans, manual brakes, no air ect., knew that the veniolia pistons i was using had
sufficient clearance for .490 lift, would be a street car, knew that max rpm would be 5400-5600 rpm, and the fact that I wanted a lot of rumpty rump, and that I did not mind setting valves and could put up with a little ragged idle. All of the above is just because every time I get behind the wheel of my car I feel like a kid again. So I like a little rough around the edges feel. So the cam is .480 lift, duration is 280, 240 at .050 cam lift, lobe separation is 108. But that being said, Jerry will grind what you need, just tell him what you want to do with the car. Mike.
Last edited by mdonohue05; 11/26/13 12:38 AM.
