Club 80-90 Forums

What I meant is custom profile Aircooled 3 bolt cams ( like you have) , because people are already set up to make them, the smaller market for WBX cams means manufacturers may not bother remamaking them.

Ah, I see, yes - WBX profile cams made from 3-bolt blanks. You could be right.

FWIW the only iron cam blanks available to the industry are 3-bolt, I asked about having a new 4-bolt paytern made and the answer was yes of course but the tooling cost was c.2k and a minimum commitment of 100 cams...

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silverbullet wrote:FWIW the only iron cam blanks available to the industry are 3-bolt, I asked about having a new 4-bolt paytern made and the answer was yes of course but the tooling cost was c.2k and a minimum commitment of 100 cams...

Did they give any indication what 100 blanks would cost? I would have thought there's potential for an investment opportunity here - if the only 4-bolt 2.1 cams currently available are VW Heritage's reprofiled Aircooled cams, when those (and the NOS 1.9 cams) are gone then there's a chance that they (and other suppliers) might be interested in buying blanks from whoever jumps first and makes the investment in a quality product.

You have to wonder why VW changed the cam for the WBX?
I'm also interested in why the 3 bolt cam has an imperial thread, did VW use imperial back when it was first designed?

There's always these 4 bolt/rivet gears from CSP...
CSP CAM GEARS
It makes no mention of sizing, but most originals seem to be between -1 and +1 so might be useful for some engines if also replacing the drive gear on the crank.

VW never used anything imperial other than the filter head (3/4" UNF)
So much aftermarket Aircooled is of American origin, hence the Unified fixings.
IIRC a batch of cams would have worked out at around 8k (60 quid per cam, finished x 100, 2k tooling)
It is too big a risk for someone like me.

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Ah ok, so they wanted a commitment for 100 finished cams, rather than 100 blanks. That's a bit of a risk I agree. If it was just blanks it might be worth a risk that retailers might need smaller batches to be finished to a particular profile (e.g. 20 off DG, or 20 off DJ, or 10 off 'warmed up' like yours), and those could be made from the stock of blanks which perhaps could be stored at the manufacturer until needed. But it's a bit hypothetical if that's not what they're offering though.

The frustrating thing is that I have a NOS DJ cam that I am keeping as a master, just in case as it were.
I probably could have a range of profiles made for a small unit cost increase but it requires other conversations and if there arent enough wbx owners prepared to pay what it costs to put their engines right in the long term, the project is a non-starter.
I know there are loads of DG's out there but even so...

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Remind me again why you could not just turn a blank from a chunk of steel?
Ok the flange would want to be a seperate part otherwise there would be alot of waste.

You could do that.

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cost of steel appox would be?

You have to factor in the welding and heat treatment. Chill cast iron is and always has been the best material for camshafts, it really is hard to beat.

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I would have thought you could have an interference fit with woodfuff key to hold the flange to shaft, even a thread and nut with keyway, then it's just turned with a little milling.
Whats heat treatment for is that because of welding?

Still may be expensive but for low volume production of a blank cam could be more viable than tooling up and min production runs.

Its just adding complexity.

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