What ever happened to the Straub cam crowd?

[Extended Power]

When they first came out, it seemed to be the hot ticket.
I don't see too many threads about them after 2016???

I have one on the shelf, and am wondering about degreeing it when I install it...or are they just another lipstick on a pig?

 

[Zeb]

I thought they were gonna be the best thing since sliced bread when they cam out, but after using 5 of them and being very unimpressed, I’ve been using a mix of RCD and Colt with Colt being my favorite.
The big lsa, a lot of duration, and small lift doesn’t work well.
I also used 1 of his in an 08 6.7 Cummins, and 1 in a 2015 Duramax with similar results. Slower spoolup, and less power than even the stock cams.

 

[Extended Power]

Yikes!
That wasnt the feedback I was hoping for....but at least it's honest.

Did you, or were you able to degree any of them in somewhat?
Did Chris offer any help, or info, as to why they were less than stellar?

I already have a Colt stage 2, but don't like the 100psi back pressure...

 

[Zeb]

I did not degree them. I just pressed the stock gear on, lined up the timing marks, and considered it done.
The other thing I had issues with is we have taken 4 of the motors back apart, AND EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM has had exhaust valve marks on the pistons. 2 of those motors were freshly rebuilt 6.4’s that I didn’t assemble and thought possibly piston protrusion and /or valve recession was off on, but the othe 2 were stock, unmolested, 6.0 bottom ends that I had check piston protrusion and valve recession on.
The 1st truck that we did one on is the one that we posted dyno numbers and fuel mileage on. I don’t think the cam really did anything to help either of those things that much, because looking back on it, that truck had other issues we addressed at the same time.
That truck is also the only one that is still running that cam and the guy loves it. It was in here last week for cab mounts and it has about 65,000 miles on it since we put it in.
They work pretty well with the stock vgt, but when we’ve gone to a bigger vgt, or non-vgt, they suck.
I’ve talked to Chris several times about it, and he always says there is another problem, or to look at how flat the power curve is, or.....
I really like Chris, and enjoy talking with him, but he missed it on these diesel cams.
How much boost pressure are you at when you have 100psi drive pressure?
I don’t think a cam is going to “fix” that.

 

[Extended Power]

I usually have 100psi drive pressure, and about 85psi boost.

30-32psi from the 91mm, and about 85 overall.

Every time I take my intake manifold off, I see that I have soot inside it. Which to me seems like the drive pressure is pushing back into the intake when the intake, and exhaust valves are open at the sam time. (A very short amount of time, but both open none the less.)
I thought Chris' reasoning for his cam timing made perfect sense...only have the intake valves open when the piston is drawing air in, and only have the exhaust valves open when the piston is pushing the combustion gases out...never open at the same time.

My friend has a Straub cam in his duramax, and did not degree it, and it is slower to spool then with a stock cam. Now he has to pull it apart and degree it. This is why I'm asking for help from Chris, and here, so it's degreed correctly on install.

I should mention that I also have a wastegate controlled by a AMS 1000 controller, but instead if the dump tying back into the primary's hot charge pipe, it just dumps to atmosphere. This is another item I would like to address this winter.

 

[Zeb]

Boost to drive ratio isn’t out of line.
I would definitely get the wastegate dump tied into the intermediate pipe, and try to drive the 91 harder.
Chris’ reasoning on valve timing made a lot of sense to me, till I tried it. We don’t have a lot of lift on any of these cams, and my understanding from talking to people smarter than I is, there is very little airflow below .100” valve lift. Generally, anytime you add duration, and widen the lsa, you move the power curve higher into the rpm range, and hurt torque production.
Also, how are you going to degree the cam? With the fixed locating pin on the cam, and 1 slot in the gear, I’m interested to hear your plan. Too bad we don’t have the option of offset keys like a Cummins. I’m not sure I’d want to go thru the hassle of trying multiple settings!
I’ve have run 4 different cams in my wife’s Excursion and I think she’d have a fit if I told her I was gonna pull the motor again!

 

[Extended Power]

18" degree wheel.
Try to align it as straight up as possible, and check the timing.
Change the timing by one tooth, and check it again.
Change it one tooth the other way, and see which one is the closest.

Chris emailed me back.
Basically said to install the cam as close to IVO as possible.
Gonna have to ask what he means...
Intake valve open...when? At TDC? Intake fully open? That don't make sense.

With what he had me believing, the intake valve should be opening when the piston starts to move down the bore, and be fully closed at the bottom of the stroke.
Exhaust should start to open once the piston starts to come back up to TDC, and be fully closed at TDC.
This is why I'm wondering why you had exhaust valve marks on the piston tops?

 

[Zeb]

With what he had me believing, the intake valve should be opening when the piston starts to move down the bore, and be fully closed at the bottom of the stroke.
Exhaust should start to open once the piston starts to come back up to TDC, and be fully closed at TDC.
This is why I'm wondering why you had exhaust valve marks on the piston tops?

This is great on a naturally aspirated motor where you are relying on piston vacuum to fill the cylinder, and have way more valve lift than we do.
Big lsa and a lot of duration makes for a late closing exhaust valve is why I had exhaust valve to piston contact.
Im pretty sure moving it 1 tooth on the cam gear isn’t going to work. That’s about 10*.

 

[outacntrl]

Seems like I remember reading a bunch of post about Chris's cams not making the power they should over on yellowbullet. He seemed to have a bunch of "reasons" as to why but people were swapping his cam out and picking up 50+ hp and a lot better driveability on NA combos.

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[Cutting-Edge Diesel]

If I remember right he was claiming crazy before and after numbers with bad dyno graphs.

 

[Extended Power]

Chris had actually called me when Side Action Diesel was all about these cams, and I had said, or asked a couple sensitive questions/comments.
What I do remember is this:
-I wasted my money on a higher stall converter, if I was going to use his cam....didn't need it.
-It works with any sized injectors, as the more fuel and boost you throw at it, the better it is over other cams. (More efficient)
-I would not have any back pressure issues anymore.
-I didn't have to go to a smaller turbo for better spool up, as his cam works so good, and can spool turbos other cams require a higher stall to do so.

Being that he took the time to actually call me personally, since he didn't know me from Adam, I was sold on it, and purchased one from him.

Now, I'm having more than second thoughts on installing it, and think I may have a $1500.00 paperweight. (Canadian$)
I sure don't want crappy performance...even if I am stepping my setup down a bit.

 

[Zeb]

Chris had actually called me when Side Action Diesel was all about these cams, and I had said, or asked a couple sensitive questions/comments.
What I do remember is this:
-I wasted my money on a higher stall converter, if I was going to use his cam....didn't need it.
-It works with any sized injectors, as the more fuel and boost you throw at it, the better it is over other cams. (More efficient)
-I would not have any back pressure issues anymore.
-I didn't have to go to a smaller turbo for better spool up, as his cam works so good, and can spool turbos other cams require a higher stall to do so.

Being that he took the time to actually call me personally, since he didn't know me from Adam, I was sold on it, and purchased one from him.

Now, I'm having more than second thoughts on installing it, and think I may have a $1500.00 paperweight. (Canadian$)
I sure don't want performance...even if I am stepping my setup down a bit.

This is exactly what he told me, but I didnt find it to work that way in real life.
I talked to Brenton at S.A.D.P. early on and he was all excited about them also. I havent talked to him in awhile, and wish he would chime in on here.

 

[Extended Power]

Well...gonna list the Straub cam & Morel lifters for sale.
Contact me if interested.

Still have the receipt for the cam and lifters.
Paid $1095 US for the cam, and $205 US for the lifters.

 

[KCTurbos]

You might talk to Rob @ Asheville engines to see if he has any experience. I know I saw them a trade show together this year... and I think he offers them in his builds.

I was also curious what came to pass with these. I also had a pleasant conversation with him which meant a lot to me. He was willing to walk me through everything that made his cams special.

Too bad it is so freaking hard to do before/after testing on these cams

 

[Bgdiesel]

We did a back to back comparison on our race truck with his cam and from the calculator picked up over 200hp over our colt cam in our 7.3 We experienced far better spool up and was much cleaner down track and put us at 1038hp fuel only on the calculator. Just our in house results and we held back from several different upgrades we wanted to make in order to do an actual back to back comparison. If I experience anything other than this on different model engines in the shop I will try and report back


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[Extended Power]

See....it's this that has me wondering why so much difference between installs?

Is it that the cams aren't installed correctly, and this is the reason for such poor performance?
How is it that the same cam, doesn't work in one engine build, but makes huge power/torque gains on another.
Yes, I seen that this was for the 7.3L.

 

[Zeb]

We did a back to back comparison on our race truck with his cam and from the calculator picked up over 200hp over our colt cam in our 7.3 We experienced far better spool up and was much cleaner down track and put us at 1038hp fuel only on the calculator. Just our in house results and we held back from several different upgrades we wanted to make in order to do an actual back to back comparison. If I experience anything other than this on different model engines in the shop I will try and report back


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Im glad you saw gains.
I have relayed my experience with these cams in the 6.0/6.4 platform, 1 6.7 Cummins, and 1 Duramax.
It’s good to see someone saw positive results, even if the gains are nearly unbelievable.

 

[Bgdiesel]

Im glad you saw gains.
I have relayed my experience with these cams in the 6.0/6.4 platform, 1 6.7 Cummins, and 1 Duramax.
It’s good to see someone saw positive results, even if the gains are nearly unbelievable.

Yes sir and we have 1 going in a an 11 6.7 Powerstroke and a 16 dmax in the shop now, so we see what kind of results those yield, both are stock fuel other than the 6.7 having a 15 hpfp. A good Example with the race truck is previously we had gone 5.40 on nitrous and after the cam fuel only we went 5.50@125mph we had also dumped 200lbs of weight during this time, but with all those #'s in the calculator it was just punching in the numbers and looking at the results, hope this helps



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[sootie]

See....it's this that has me wondering why so much difference between installs?

Is it that the cams aren't installed correctly, and this is the reason for such poor performance?
How is it that the same cam, doesn't work in one engine build, but makes huge power/torque gains on another.
Yes, I seen that this was for the 7.3L.

How a cam is degree'd makes a tremendous difference as you are already aware.

Yes sir and we have 1 going in a an 11 6.7 Powerstroke and a 16 dmax in the shop now, so we see what kind of results those yield, both are stock fuel other than the 6.7 having a 15 hpfp. A good Example with the race truck is previously we had gone 5.40 on nitrous and after the cam fuel only we went 5.50@125mph we had also dumped 200lbs of weight during this time, but with all those #'s in the calculator it was just punching in the numbers and looking at the results, hope this helps



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Can you share your install practices?

 

[Bgdiesel]

How a cam is degree'd makes a tremendous difference as you are already aware.









Can you share your install practices?

We don't degree any of them as of Rt now because of the stock cam gear design and from what we have seen they should not be having piston to valve contact. It is my opinion that the valve springs do not have enough seat pressure, so we do shim every valve spring that comes through the shop on a 6.0/6.4 to 100lbs seat pressure and we no longer have any piston to valve contact on any cam that we have used. As you may already know the stock pistons and valves touch quite often, on hard driven trucks or after engine mods and programmers, obviously more of a chance after any head or block machining I do like to run minimum valve recession of .030" on every head that comes through the shop we also bring every new head from ford straight to our machine shop and resurface it and set to the same valve recession spec as well. I know this spec is outside of the ford spec but I don't really agree with that particular spec. Side note, the race truck runs no valve reliefs whatsoever without any valve contact and we are not milling down the top of our pistons currently


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