SEPTEMBER 2000


Valve Opener for Flow Pro

We are proud to announce an automatic valve opener for Flow Pro. Flow Pro is the only Flow Bench data acquisition system to boast an automatic opener. Working together with the Flow Pro depression controller the opener does automatic testing. A complete muti-lift test on one cylinder test takes about one minute. The opener can be used with most existing opener systems, including Brzezinski.

An adapter for connecting Briggs engines to Flow Quik is now available. The adapter has a rubber cone that seals to the bottom end of the cylinder. A special clamp holds the adapter in place.

Dema Elgin and Alan Lockheed are offering a two day Performance Engine Technology Seminar. The seminar will be taught twice, October 28-29 and November 4-5 in Redwood City, CA. For more information contact Dema Elgin Cams in Redwood City, CA at 650-364-2187.

Dynomation user John Aller reports an interesting story. John and his friend were working on a Buick V8 engine. They had already decided to use a camshaft that had worked well in the past. Dynomation simulations showed that the engine would benefit from better exhaust flow, but all the local "experts" said working on the exhaust was a waste of time. John worked on the exhaust anyway, but the car did not win the race. It seems that it made so much power it broke the driveshaft! John's friend said it was only time he was glad about braking driveshaft.

Updates for the Windows version of Cam Pro Plus are now available on-line. To find the software updates page, click on the Software Updates tag on our website home page. The software updates page lets you view a complete revision history and also download the latest version update. The download is a small program that you run after the download completes. It updates your existing Cam Pro Plus software. The download is small enough to easily can fit on a floppy disk should you need to take it to a different computer. Download times are less than 5 minutes with a typical dial-up modem.

Recent improvements to the software include Analysis Reports. These reports are based on suggestions from a major Winston Cup team. They let you compare lobes to quantify manufacturing consistency (and by implication, the manufacturing quality). Just as with the Custom Reports, you can define up to 10 different analysis reports. Each report can be configured to analyze a different set of features.

Allan Lockheed (author of Engine Expert software) has taken us to task for weak-hearted promotion of Valve Pro's air flow curves. The exact words were something like, "Why are you keeping this a secret?" Not wanting to incur the wrath of the Engine Expert we hereby rectify our oversight.

Valve Pro can combine air flow and camshaft data to produce a curve of air flow vs. crank angle. The trick is to find combinations that have more area under the curve. Generally speaking, more air flow means more power.

In the last issue of the newsletter we highly recommend the Camshaft Reference Handbook by Don Hubbard. We know that many of you took our advice and purchased the book, because you have told us how pleased you were with the book.

At $149 this is a bargain. It is worth several times that price. Order directly from Don: dhubbard7@earthlink.net, Phone 239-936-0866, Fax 239-275-9936.

Don Hubbard has provided a bibliography of camshaft related papers, books, and magazine articles. We considered publishing it in the paper newsletter, but at 146 entries and 5 pages it is just too big. Instead it is posted here on our website: Don Hubbard's Camshaft Bibliography