When Comp Cams "hit the scene" with their High Energy series in the '80s, they were "ground-breaking" in that they had asymetrical-shaped lobes, faster rise time, slower closing time. Prior to this, there were various ways to put more "area under the curve", whether by larger lifter diameters, mushroom lifters, or roller lifters, but nothing of this nature. One of their traits seemed to be that when new, they sounded like a solid lifter cam, but where hydraulics, for several thousand miles. The 268 worked great in Chevy 350s. Reasonably smooth idle at 650rpm, "radical" when slowed down to about 500rpm. Even better with headers The specs on the CC HE 268 are close to the MP272. I got one for a motorhome-block 440 I was going to put together I later chucked it into the short block, added the degree wheel and dial indicator, and checked its timing events. Sure enough, the intake valve was open for a full 10 crank degrees at max lift, unlike the orig Purple Shaft 284 that max lift happened for 1 crank degree at max lift (which I suspect is normal for most cams). Had to re-check that max lift duration!
Allegedly the ONLY Chrysler replacement cams which are designed for the larger Chrysler valve lifter are the Hughes Engines cams. Their claim is that the others are designed for "Chevy size" lifters and used with Chrysler-sized lifters. One "claimer engine" trick is to bore the lifter bores on a Chevy small block to Chrysler size and used the larger Chrysler lifters in them, for more power. In north TX, nobody had heard of Hughes, but his focus at that time (in the middle 1990s) was totally Mopar. When David Vizzard was beginning to tout closed chamber combustion chambers, Hughes had some "quench dome" pistons to make open chambers into closed chambers, effectively. Even now, he's probably more of a niche-builder than a mainstream-builder, but still worth consideration. Be that as it may.
Of late, many of the Lunati stock-type cams have raised my interest. Many new series of cams, also claiming assymetrical lobe shapes. Another is Rocket Cams. There are many camshaft "sellers", but very FEW actual camshaft grinders, under contact with the "sellers".
CBODY67
