In 1981 when I was building my first 440, I bought a Crower Monarch 280H for $66.

280/280 advertised, 224/224@.050, 110lsa, 460/460 lift.

That was a decent little cam.

my first performance cam was a crower 201hj; 284/.480. best running little street cam I put in my 383 road chicken.

In 1987 I switched from the purple shaft hydralic .455 RV cam with a Holley 650 vac. sec. to that .509/292 purple cam in my 1969 300 440 big block, with factory oem compression(10 to 1) and stock 906 heads (except for a fresh valve job with stock valves). And the Holley 750 #3310 carb. It made a HUGE NIGHT AND DAY DIFFERENCE in performance! I had power brakes, which worked fine with that .509 and it idled around 800 RPM or so in gear. That big car could do tremendous burnouts, AND keep up with new Buick Grand Nationals on the street !

The "hemi grind" was available through all of the 70s. It had 284°/284°, 0.465" lift and 60° OL. I don't know when the rest of the "purple shaft" DC cams came out, but in 1976 Ma Mopar was still recommending the Racer Brown SSH25 and SSH44 hydraulic cams. I tried one of each before I went to a Crower solid. My buddy was running the mini-express with mushroom tappets. That thing was Bad Azzzz.

Yes the MP Mushroom cam and Lifter .690 lift

With Speed Pro 11.5 (Boat Anchor - Heavy) pistons

on Sunoco 97 or Shell 95.5 gas

I think when racer brown died and the business changed mopar changed.

There are actually two Mini-Express mushroom cams, the 316 duration (278 @ .050) with .654 gross lift, and the bigger one 328 adv. (don't know the .050) with .690 lift. My '82 D.C. book says the .690 "loses some low speed torque"...

I built my 451 around the smaller one. Reground to restore lobe taper and now .652 and 272 @ .050. Has a really nasty idle, 6-7" Hg at 1000-1100 rpm. Should be fun once I get the A-body reassembled this fall

On my list of “1000 things I’d like to test on the dyno(that will likely never happen)” would be a cam shootout between the old racer brown/DC grinds(ssh-25 and ssh-44)including the hemi grind, vs the updated MP 280, 284, 292 cams, vs the old school Comp 280, 286, 296 Magnum cams, vs the newer Comp Purple Plus 280, 284, 292 cams.
Then toss in some “fast rate stuff”... the Comp XE/HL 275, 285, 295 to see how it all compares.

3/4 race or full race cam

Wow, 15 cam changes! Don't forget to degree them all.

back in the day a friend had a '70 cuda with a 440 6-pak in it. he used a racer brown st21 and swore by it.

If you were to guess, what do you think you'd discover?

Tested on a motor combo good enough to exploit the faster rate cams, and all cams tested using lifters with similar bleed rates, I would expect the faster rate cams to make more power than their slower counterparts........ up to the limiting rpm of the lifters.

Aside from the peak power numbers, I’d be interested in seeing how much higher(if any) the older profiles would rev before the valvetrain got unhappy.

Another test along those lines I think might be revealing would be to try and find some lifters with a nice slow bleed rate, then sort through a tray or so of new stock replacement lifters, find the 32 with the highest bleed rate......... then test the slowest bleed rate vs the fastest bleed rate on the cam that ran into stability problems at the lowest rpm...... and the one that revved the highest before getting unhappy.

The 440 I bought for a core in 1981 had a pretty new DC 292/510 cam in it..... the ssh-44.

I put it in a box, but installed it years later..... actually a couple different times.
The last time was when I was selling my old 448.
I seem to recall it not having any problems turning 6500rpm on the dyno with springs set up at 125/325 and stamped rockers.

That was probably close to 20 years ago now.......... and I’m pretty sure it’s the last time I had a hyd cammed BB Mopar rev that high.

Another test along those lines I think might be revealing would be to try and find some lifters with a nice slow bleed rate, then sort through a tray or so of new stock replacement lifters, find the 32 with the highest bleed rate......... then test the slowest bleed rate vs the fastest bleed rate on the cam that ran into stability problems at the lowest rpm...... and the one that revved the highest before getting unhappy.



My head hurts now.

How do the older oem rate? Ive some sets from the 70-s long before they started putting the nice machine marks on them to get the crown.

Thanks Dwayne.

My thoughts are similar. It's as much about the lifter as the lobe profile.

My guess is that the fast rate would probably make more peak if the lifter stays compliant. But if it starts to give it up after peak, the old school still might have greater average hp/area under the curve, ie making the car faster.

My 383 with the new hemi grind and 30 year old lifter will pull decent to 7000 rpm, despite peak power probably at 6000-6200.

Russ, by the “new” hemi grind...... you mean the 280/.474-110?

I never tried one of those.
Seems like there was some deal where it came without lifters, and by the time you bought the lifters the cost ended up being quite a bit more than a 484 or 509 cam & lifter kit.

If I stumbled across a NIB one now I might pick it up if the price was right.

Fundamentally I like solids so much better it’s unlikely I’d ever use it in one of my own motors though.

In 1975 I used a crane solid 590 cam in my V code Cuda but it was 13.1 and .030 over. Car had insane torque and power. And 2 miles per gallon. lol

Mike

back in the day all aftermarket except mopar cams and hemi cams had the same chevy grinds on there cams do yourself a favor and let someone with the understanding pick out a real mopar cam for you later is far far better

racer brown ssh 25/44 with a ch4b or dp4b intake and hooker super comp headers. carb of your choice, starting with at LEAST a 650dp, all the way up to one of those holley "3bbls". 3.91-4.56 gear and b&m holeshot/super holeshot converter.

Yes, that's the one. I actually like it. But when I put that one in long ago, I changed a few other things so I cannot really say what improvement were cam related.