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Purple shaft cams holding their own (Mopar Muscle Article)

Well spank my monkey.....
Guess I'll find out how well this Lunati solid runs in a few days....I hope it matches or surpasses the MP cam.
 
Of course they do. Those cams made good HP back in the 80's so why shouldn't they make good HP today? It's the same MoPar engine after all.
 
There was a pretty cool test that Mopar Performance did years ago where they dropped a smogger 400, I'm talking low-compression and stock (minus all the pollution control garbage of course), unported heads, into a Duster for some drag testing with the MP cams. I think they started with the 484, then 509, then 528, 557, finally 590. The thing kept going quicker and quicker with each bigger cam and it kind of blew out the water the worries about too big a cam making your car slow down. I think it did have some steep gears though.

Those Chrysler engineers were some pretty smart guys and knew how to design stuff for the strengths and weaknesses of what they had to work with.
 
I have run the MP .484 and .557 cam and I liked both alot. The cam I run now is a custom grind that close to the .590. Ron
 
What an oddball build to test cams on.

I've never heard of most of those parts.

Am I missing something?

No one on FxBO seems to be running that setup.


Couldn't have done a 408 or a 416, or a 440 source or muscle motors 451...or a hydraulic cam...
 
Yeah, the old' DC race manual has the test that went through all the 'purple shaft' cams.. .590 ended up putting the smogger duster with an 8.5:1 400 in the mid 11's.. It had a pair of Stage V heads (which flowed what, 240cfm?) and a M1 intake with an 850 holley. 727 auto with a 'k' converter I believe, with 8" slicks and low gears.. If that isn't an odd ball combination, I don't know what is! It shows that Racer Brown really tested his cams not only on the Dyno, but the track.. D.C. picked out some of the best 'all around contenders' in the bunch, and they perform great in nearly any application. Cool article, just thought it would make some of the 'new' mopar fans scratch their heads as the old stuff still works!
 
Gregory C said:
Who is Sonny?
If YOU are Sonny, why refer to yourself as Sonny?
?????
Click to expand...

Sonny likes to refer to himself in the 3rd person. Don't worry, you will get used to it.
 
Last edited:
I wonder what octane fuel was used and what you could get away with. In example, could you use 93 pump on one of these? Would I have to use a race fuel on the smaller cammed engines?
Any body been there done that?
 
Anyone else here running that build???

Anyone know anyone else running that build???
 
Gregory C said:
Who is Sonny?
If YOU are Sonny, why refer to yourself as Sonny?
?????
Click to expand...


Its like Jimmy in the episode of Sienfeld. You know Jimmy likes this and Jimmy likes that and Jimmy dont like Chevy's. As was said its cool as thats just how Sonny likes to talk. Besides he owns a cool 63 Plymouth ! Ron
 
My .509 ran great at WOT ...but the daily driver end was tough at times to say the least...
 
rumblefish360 said:
I wonder what octane fuel was used and what you could get away with. In example, could you use 93 pump on one of these? Would I have to use a race fuel on the smaller cammed engines?
Any body been there done that?
Click to expand...

I barely get by with 10.25:1 CR with my 451 and the 312/590MP solid on pump fuel, as I believe im at around 180-190 cranking PSI. Remember, 10% Ethanol mixture in most pump gas locations. This camshaft bleeds off quite a bit of cylinder pressure as well.. Runs fantastic though, not sure why anyone would be intimidated to run something this large. Can't go by the recommended 'one size fits all CR' though.. Direct connection race manual and the Mopar engine manual state '2' points of compression should be increased when going to aluminum heads to retain the same power as Irons.. Another food for thought..
 
I just don't see a 13-1 aluminum engine on the street with 93, our best here in NY. Kind of a shame, LOL! Just wondering how far anyone here has gone with a high ratio and pump gas.
 
I'm at 10.1:1 with 190 PSI on 91 gas. Pings like an SOB when you stand on it but that is with the factory iron intake and a 750 Eddy AFB. A splash of race gas and it rips all the way down the track.

Next, I did nothing else but put a 6 BBL on it and the pinging went away - and the 6 BBL was lean! Go figure. The Eddy set up also made more power. Go figure again! I got some jet plates installed and upped the center carb jet so I'll see how it does now. The point is this: There is more than just compression ratio contributing to pinging, and specifically, my problem might be fuel distribution related. So after I get this 6 BBL tuned I'll be quite happy if it makes more power than the single 4 BBL AND doesn't ping on pump 91.
 
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